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LOGIC OF EMPIRE 

By ROBERT HEINLEIN 

MARCH * 1041 








You have probably known 
several cases like that . . . the 
medical records report lots of 
them. And they all lead up to 
this warning: 



Don’t take a cold lightly. Don’t neglect it. 
Take care of it at once. 

HELP NATURE EARLY 

If you feel a cold coming on, or your throat 
feels irritated, go to bed. Keep warm. Drink 
plenty of water and fruit juices. Eat lightly. 
Gargle full strength Listerine Antiseptic 
every two hours. 

All of these simple measures are aimed to 
help Nature to abort a cold quickly. Rest and 
warmth build up reserve. Juices and water 
aid elimination. Food restores strength. And 
Listerine Antiseptic kills millions of germs 
on mouth and throat surfaces . . . the very 
types of germs that many authorities claim 
are the cause of many of the distressing as- 



pects of a cold. Tests showed germ reductions 
on tissue surfaces ranging to 96.7% fifteen 
minutes after the Listerine gargle, and up to 
80% one hour after. 

9 YEARS OF RESEARCH 

And in tests conducted during 9 years of 
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day had fewer colds, milder colds, and colds of 
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This success we ascribe to List erine’s germ-kill- 
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We wish we could say that Listerine Anti- 
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Lambert Pharmacal Co., St . Louis, Mo. 



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AST— 1 



ASTOUNDING 

SCIENCE-FICTION 

TITLE REGISTERED U. S. PATENT OFFICE 



CONTENTS MARCH, 1941 VOL. XXVII NO. 1 

The editorial contents of this magazine have not been published before, are 
protected bycopyright and cannot be reprinted without the publisher’s permission. 



NOVELETTES 

LOGIC OF EMPIRE ...... Robert Heinlein ... 9 

Of course it wasn’t really slavery- — the men weren’t sold, just their 
labor. But the lawyer found it not so different when he had to live it! 

MASQUERADE . Clifford D. Simok . . 57 

The energy beings of Mercury were known to be capable of picturing 
thoughts — but the exact extent of their art had never been guessed! 

SHORT STORIES 

BLOCKADE RUNNER Malcolm Jameson . . 44 

A really good technician can make almost any 
sort of gadget into a neatly deadly weapon — 

POKER FACE . Theodore Sturgeon . 75 

“Face” was known to be a little queer, but the exact extent 
and origin of his queerness showed up at a poker game! 

PUTSCH Vic Phillips and 

Scott Roberts . . 86 

Man surpasses the animals because, having insufficient 
weapons for direct combat, he uses his wits. The 
same principle works nicely in other things, too — 

ECCENTRIC ORBIT . . D. B. Thompson . . . 113 

Two men wanted to enslave a race to build a weapon 
to enslave their own race — and an eccentric planet 
with an eccentric people complicated things! 

ARTICLE 

SPACE HAS A SPECTRUM . . . . R. S. Richardson . . .104 

Science-fact article on the methods used in detecting the super- 
tenuous gases that fill the “vacuum” of interstellar space. 

SERIAL 

SBXTH COLUMN ....... Anson MacDonald . . 127 

Conclusion 

The cult of the great god Mota on the march — with 
halos shining and a revived U. S. army wearing ’em! 

READERS' DEPARTMENTS 



THE EDITOR'S PAGE 5 

m TIMES TO COME . . £5 



Department of Prophecy and Future Issues. 



ANALYTICAL LABORATORY £5 

An Analysis of Readers’ Opinions. 

BRASS TACKS AND SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS . 156 

The Open House of Controversy. 



Illustrations by Eron, M. I sip, R. Isip and Schneeman. 

COVER BY ROGERS 

All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are designated 
either by name or character. Any similarity is coincidental. 

Monthly publication issued by Street &, Smith Publications, Incorporated, 79 Seventh Avenue. New 
York City. Allen L* Grammer, President; Henry W. Ralston, Vice President; Gerald H. Smith, 
Treasurer and Secretary. Copyright, 1941, in U. S. A. and Great Britain by Street & Smith 
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inDUSTfiML PROCESS 

Some of the most important inventions are the ones that practically 
no one ever sees in use — only the products appear, and seem no different 
than the old, or appear simply as an obvious need. 

I’ve been wondering recently how much good it would do a man if 
he had a time machine capable of a sort of one-shot dredging operation. 
Suppose the machine could pick up any one desired object of fifty years 
hence and bring it back, but, by some reason of inherent limitation, could 
never operate again or be duplicated. What to pick up? What class of 
thing to aim at? 

Well, a fighting plane of fifty years hence might make a good bet, 
things being as they are. But let’s consider, first, before making our one 
available collection.’ What sort of thing are we apt to drag back? From 
present knowledge, there’s a fair-to-middling chance that it may not have 
atomic power, but it’s practically certain it will. That would be a help? 

No, that would be completely infuriating in all probability. It would 
be an atomic engine designed for a highly refined, blended atomic fuel, 
probably composed of pure isotopes, and probably not using U-235. If it 
did, we’d know how to make a U-235 engine — interesting, but useless until 
we learn how to make U-235. If it used some other pure isotope, the 
knowledge of the possibility would be equally academic and impractical. 

Further, it would probably be constructed in what would appear to 
our eyes as a very flimsy manner — metal foils and a breath of plastic 
sprayed here and there. Only the metal foils would turn out to have 
a most indecent amount of stiffness and strength, and the plastics would 
probably display properties blending those of rubber, hard steel, and clear 
glass. Fine! But they would contain no clue as to how they were made. 
Freshly mixed duraluminum alloy, if simply cast into billets, is a com- 
pletely useless sort of metal — soft, no stiffness, no good. _ Analysis will tell 
readily enough what it’s composed of. Analysis of the finished, heat-treated 
and age-hardened dural will give exactly the same answer — but a stiffness, 
hardness and tensile strength reading that belongs in a different category. 
But you can’t analyze for heat treatment. 

Then there might be a little but very necessary filter somewhere in 
the engine, composed of a pure-gold mesh containing 10,000 perfectly 
square holes to the inch, 100,000,000 to the square inch, in a perfectly flat, 
tenth-inch-thick metal plate. There you have the thing— you know what 
to make. But try and make that! The industrial process necessary doesn’t 
exist yet. Or it might be a condenser one-inch cube that operates at 10,000 
volts, its plates being pure silver foil a hundred thousandth of an inch 
thick separated by half a hundred thousandth of an inch of some clear, 
water-white plastic substance that simply doesn’t conduct electricity. 
Chemical analysis finally reveals its structure — and that it is a structure 
that all present laws of chemistry say can exist, once made, but can’t be 
made because it involves reversing the natural direction of reactions. 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Then there are the machine guns. Remarkably enough, they’re rather 
small and don’t use cartridges at all! They use little . 22-caliber tungsten 
metal .bullets, but the automatic breech-loading mechanism takes raw pow- 
der, measures it out, jams it in behind the automatically inserted bullet, 
locks the breech, and fires — all in one five hundredth of a second! It’s sim- 
ple enough mechanism, really, and tests show it never jams, doesn’t involve 
useless weight of cartridges, can be reloaded by merely dumping in bags of 
powder and bullets, and is astoundingly deadly. But — the parts must be 
accurate to two millionths of an inch, and are made of stainless, nonrusting 
tungsten alloy, ten times harder than the best steel, and six times stronger. 
The composition of the alloy’s easy to determine — but when we alloy that 
mixture it doesn’t alloy — it simply separates out in layers. (What we don’t 
know is that it’s made by treating pure tungsten to special atomic bom- 
bardment that transmutes some — a carefully determined percentage — of 
the atoms to the desired alloy elements, followed by intense supersonic 
heat treatment. It wouldn’t do us any good if we did know; we haven’t 
the atomic power plants necessary to supply the bombardment.) 

Most gadgets exist only by reason of the immense technology behind 
them, and in fifty years the whole technology will be replaced by a new 
one. If Hertz had been presented, via some time machine, with a modern 
radio in honor of his achievement in discovering radio waves, he couldn’t 
have duplicated it, or built a transmitter from which to receive signals. 
The tubes have tungsten filaments; before the electric light was developed, 
tungsten could not be worked at all. Hertz couldn’t have made a tungsten 
filament. The filaments are coated with various oxides to increase their 
electron emissivity. I wonder how long it would have been before scientists 
of that day would have discovered that those thin layers of oxide weren’t 
accidental impurities, but very necessary? 

And what an unholy job the chemists would have had trying to ana- 
lyze bakelite! The plastic product of the phenol-formaldehyde reaction has 
a molecule that doesn’t suggest a trace of its simple origin! Anything capa- 
ble of taking bakelite into a respectable, analyzable solution immediately 
destroys the molecule hopelessly. 

Literally, for once, it is true that any jack-leg radio mechanic knows 
more about it than the guy who invented radio! 

But the inventions — bakelite, tungsten wire-drawing, thorium impreg- 
nation of filaments — that make radio and a thousand other wonderful 
inventions work are the unseen, seldom-realized industrial process, not the 
bold and sweeping discovery that everybody knows about. 

If you don’t happen to know, try figuring out how? tungsten might be 
drawn into wire. It melts at 3,500° Centigrade, doesn’t soften much below 
8,000°, both of which temperatures are higher than the melting point of 
any refractory save graphite — which can’t be used because tungsten reacts 
with it. Tungsten, being too refractory to melt, is produced from its ores 
in the form of' a powder. The trick is to get it from powder to fine wire 
under those conditions, plus the added one that it burns to oxide if heated 
in air. Tungsten doesn’t plate satisfactorily, so that’s out. Try figuring 
it out. 

The Editor. 




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LOGIC Of (OIPIOE 

By Robert Heinlein 

It wasn't really slavery— but they sold men's labor on the 
auction block. And a man could quit any time he paid his debts 
—if he worked and didn't eat. But that was the way of empire. 

Illustrated by Schneeman 



“Don’t be a sentimental fool, 
Sam!” 

“Sentimental or not,” Jones per- 
sisted, “I know human slavery when 
I see it. That’s what you’ve got on 
Venus.” 

Humphrey Wingate snorted. 
“That’s utterly ridiculous. The com- 



pany’s labor clients are employees, 
working under legal contracts, freely 
entered into.” 

Jones’ eyebrows raised slightly. 
“So? What kind of a contract is it 
that throws a man into jail if he 
quits his job?” 

“That’s not the case. Any client 



10 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



can quit his job on the usual two- 
weeks’ notice. I ought to know; 
I—” 

“Yes, I know,” agreed Jones in a 
tired voice. “You’re a lawyer. You 
know all about contracts. But the 
trouble with you, you dunderheaded 
fool, is that all you understand is le- 
gal phrases. Free contract — nuts! 
What I’m talking about is facts, not 
legalisms. I don’t care what the con- 
tract says — those people are slaves,” 

Wingate emptied his glass and set 
it down. “So I’m a dunderheaded 
fool, am I? Well, I’ll tell you what 
you are, Sam Houston Jones — you 
are a half-baked parlor pink. You’ve 
never had to work for a living in your 
life, and you think it’s just too dread- 
ful that anyone else should have to. 
No, wait a minute,” he continued as 
Jones opened his mouth, “listen to 
me. The company’s clients on Venus 
are a damn sight better off than most 
people of their own class right here 
on Earth. They are certain of a job, 
of food, and a place to sleep. If they 
get sick, they’re certain of medical 
attention. The trouble with people 
of that class is that they don’t want 
to work — ” 

“Who does?” 

“Don’t be funny. The trouble is, 
if they weren’t under a fairly tight 
contract, they’d throw up a good job 
the minute they got bored with it 
and expect the company to give ’em 
a free ride back to Earth. Now it 
may not have occurred to your fine, 
free charitable mind, but the com- 
pany has obligations to its stock- 
holders — you, for instance! — and it 
can’t afford to run an interplanetary 
ferry for the benefit of a class of 
people that feel that the world owes 
them a living.” 

“You got me that time, pal,” Jones 
acknowledged with a wry face, “with 
that crack about me being a stock- 
holder. I’m ashamed of it.” 



“Then why don’t you sell?” 

Jones looked disgusted. “What 
kind of a solution is that? Do you 
think I can avoid the responsibility 
of knovnng about it just by unload- 
ing my stock?” 

“Oh, the devil with it,” said Win- 
gate. “Drink up.” 

“Right-o,” agreed Jones. It was 
his first night aground after a prac- 
tice cruise as a reserve officer; he 
needed to catch up on his drinking. 
Too bad, thought Wingate, that the 
cruise should have touched at Venus 
— “All out! All out! Up, a-a-a-all 
you idlers! Show a leg there! Show 
a leg and grab a sock!” The raucous 
voice sawed its way through Win- 
gate’s aching head. He opened his 
eyes, was blinded by raw white light, 
and shut them hastily. But the 
voice would not let him alone. “Ten 
minutes till breakfast,” it rasped. 
“Come and get it or we’ll throw it 
out!” 

He opened his eyes again, and with 
trembling will power forced them to 
track. Legs moved past his eyes, 
denirh-clad lego mostly, though some 
were bare — repulsiveness expressed 
in hairy nakedness. A confusion of 
male voices, from which he could 
catch words, but not sentences, was 
accompanied by an obbligato of me- 
tallic sounds, muffled but pervasive 
— shr-rg, shr-rg, thump! Shr-rg, 
shr-rg, thump! The thump with 
which the cycle was completed hurt 
his aching head, but was not as 
nerve-stretching as another noise, a 
toneless whirring sibilance which he 
could neither allocate nor escape. 

The air was full of the odor of hu- 
man beings, too many of them in too 
small a space. There was nothing 
so distinct as to be fairly termed a 
stench, nor was the supply of oxygen 
inadequate. But the room was filled 
with the warm, slightly musky smell 
of bodies still heated by bedclothes. 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



11 



bodies not dirty, but not freshly 
washed. It was oppressive and un- 
appetizing — in his present state al- 
most nauseating. 

He began to have some apprecia- 
tion of the nature of his surround- 
ings; he was in a bunkroom of some 
sort. It was crowded with men, men 
getting up, shuffling about, pulling 
on clothes. He lay on the bottom- 
most of a tier of four narrow bunks. 
Th rough the interstices between the 
legs which crowded around him and 
moved past his face he could see 
other such tiers around the walls and 
away from the walls, stacked floor to 
ceiling and supported by stanchions. 

Someone sat down on the foot of 
Wingate’s bunk, crowding against 
Wingate’s ankles while he drew on 
his socks. Wingate squirmed his 
feet away from the intrusion. The 
stranger turned his face toward him. 
“Did I crowd ja, bud? Sorry.” Then 
he added, not unkindly, “Better rus- 
tle out of there. The master at 
arms’ll be riding you to get them 
bunks up.” He yawned hugely and 
started to get up, quite evidently 
having dismissed Wingate and Win- 
gate's affairs from his mind. 

“Wait a minute!” Wingate de- 
manded hastily. 

“Huh?” 

“Where am T? In jail?” 

The stranger studied Wingate’s 
bloodshot eyes and puffy, unwashed 
face with detached but unmalicious 
interest. “Boy, oh, boy, you must 
’a’ done a good job of drinking up 
your bounty money.” 

"Bounty money? What the hell 
are you talking about?” 

“Honest to God, don’t you know 
where von are?” 

“No.” 

“Well — ” The other seemed re- 
luctant to proclaim a truth made 
silly by its self-evidence until Win- 
gate’s expression convinced him that 



he really wanted to know. “Well, 
you’re in the Evening Star, headed 
for Venus.” 

A couple of minutes later the 
stranger touched him on the arm. 
“Don’t take it so hard, bud. There’s 
nothing to get excited about.” 

Wingate took his hands from his 
face and pressed them against his 
temples. “It’s not real,” he said, 
speaking more to himself than to the 
other. “It can’t be real — ” 

“Stow it. Come and get your 
breakfast.” 

“I couldn’t eat anything.” 

“Nuts. Know how you feel. Felt 
that wav sometimes myself. Food 
is just the ticket.” The master at 
arms settled the issue by coming up 
and prodding Wingate in the ribs 
with his truncheon. 

“What d’yuh think this is — sick 
bay, or first class? Get those bunks 
hooked up.” 

“Easy, mate, easy,” Wingate’s new 
acquaintance conciliated. “Our pal’s 
not himself this morning.” As he 
spoke he dragged Wingate to his feet 
with one massive hand, then with 
the other shoved the tier of bunks up 
and against the wall. Hooks clicked 
into their sockets and the tier stayed 
up, flat to the wall. 

“He’ll be a damn sight less himself 
if he interferes with my routine,” the 
petty officer predicted. But he 
moved on. Wingate stood bare- 
footed on the floorplates, immobile 
and overcome by a feeling of helpless 
indecision which was reinforced by 
the fact that he was dressed only in 
his underwear. His champion stud- 
ied him. 

“You forgot your pillow. Here — ” 
He reached down into the pocket 
formed by the lowest bunk and the 
wall and hauled out a flat package 
covered with transparent plastic. He 
broke the seal and shook out the 



1 * 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



contents, a single coverall garment of 
heavy denim. Wingate put it on 
gratefully. “You can get the 
squeezer to issue you a pair of slip- 
pers after breakfast,” his friend 
added. “Right now we gotta eat.” 

The last of the queue had left the 
galley window by the time they 
reached it, and it was closed. Win- 
gate’s companion pounded on it. 
“Open up in there!” 

It slammed open. “No seconds,” 
a face announced. 

The stranger prevented the descent 
of the window with his hand. “We 
don’t want seconds, shipmate, we 
want firsts.” 

“Why the devil can’t you show up 
on time?” the galley functionary 
groused. But he slapped two ration 
cartons down on the broad sill of the 
issuing window. The big fellow 
handed one to Wingate, and sat 
down on the floorplates, his back 
supported by the galley bulkhead. 

“W 7 hat’s your name, bud?” he in- 
quired as he skinned the cover off 
his ration. “Mine’s Hartley — Satchel 
Hartley.” 

“Mine is Humphrey Wingate.” 

“O. K., Hump. Pleased to meet- 
cha. Now what’s all this song and 
dance you been giving me?” He 
spooned up an impossible bite of 
baked eggs, and sucked coffee from 
the end of his carton. 

“Well,” said Wingate, his face 
twisted with worry, “I guess I’ve 
been shanghaied.” He tried to emu- 
late Hartley’s method of drinking 
and got the brown liquid over his 
face. 

“Here — that’s no way to do,” 
Hartley said hastily. “Put the nip- 
ple in your mouth, then don’t squeeze 
any harder than you suck. Like 
this.” He illustrated. “Your theory 
don’t seem very sound to me. The 
company don’t need crimps when 
there’s plenty of guys standing in 



line for a chance to sign up. What 
happened? Can’t you remember?” 
Wingate tried. “The last thing I 
recall,” he said, “is arguing with a 
gyro driver over his fare.” 

Hartley nodded. “They’ll gyp 
you every time. D’you think he put 
the slug on you?” 

“Well — no, I guess not. I seem to 
be all right, except for the damned- 
est hangover you can imagine.” 
“You’ll feel better. You ought to 
be glad the Evening Star is a high- 
gravity ship instead of a trajectory 
job. Then you’d really be sick, and 
no foolin’.” 

“How’s that?” 

“I mean that she accelerates or de- 
celerates her whole run. Have to, 
because she carries cabin passengers. 
If we had been sent by a freighter, 
it’d be a different story. They gun 
’em into the right trajectory, then go 
weightless for the rest of the trip. 
Man, how the new chums do suffer!” 
He chuckled. 

Wingate was in no condition to 
dwell on the hardships of space sick- 
ness. “What I can’t figure out,” he 
said, “is how I landed here. Do you 
suppose they could have brought me 
aboard by mistake, thinking I was 
somebody else?” 

“Can’t say. Say, aren’t you going 
to finish your breakfast?” 

“I’ve had all I want.” 

Hartley took his statement as an 
invitation and quickly finished off 
Wingate’s ration. Then he stood up, 
crumpled the two cartons into a ball, 
stuffed them down a disposal chute, 
and said, 

“What are you going to do about 
it?” 

“What am I going to do about it?” 
A look of decision came over Win- 
gate’s face. “I’m going to march 
right straight up to the captain and 
demand an explanation, that’s what 
I’m going to do!” 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



13 



“I’d take that by easy stages, 
Hump,” Hartley commented doubt- 
fully. 

“Easy stages, hell!” He stood up 
quickly. “Ow! My head!” 

The master at arms referred them 
to the chief master at arms in order 
to get rid of them. Hartley waited 
with Wingate outside the stateroom 
of the chief master at arms to keep 
him company. “Better sell ’em your 
bill of goods pretty pronto,” he ad- 
vised. 

“Why?” 

“We’ll ground on the Moon in a 
few hours. The stop to refuel at 
Luna City for deep space will be 
your last chance to get out, unless 
von want to walk back.” 

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Win- 
gate agreed delightedly. “I thought 
I’d have to make the round trip in 
any case.” 

“Shouldn’t be surprised but what 
you could pick up the Morning Star 
in a week or two. If it’s their mis- 
take, they’ll have to return you.” 

“I can beat that,” said Wingate 
eagerly. “I’ll go right straight to the 
bank at Luna City, have them ar- 
range a letter of credit with my bank, 
and buy a ticket on the Earth-Moon 
shuttle.” 

Hartley’s manner underwent a 
subtle change. He had never in his 
life “arranged a letter of credit.” 
Perhaps such a man could walk up 
to the captain and lay down the law. 

The chief master at arms listened 
to Wingate’s story with obvious im- 
patience and interrupted him in the 
middle of it to consult his roster of 
emigrants. He thumbed through it 
to the W’s and pointed to a line. 
Wingate read it with a sinking feel- 
ing. There was his own name, cor- 
rectly spelled. “Now get out,” or- 
dered the official, “and quit wasting 
my time.” 



But Wingate stood up to him. 
“You have no authority in this mat- 
ter — none whatsoever. I insist that 
you take me to the captain.” 

“Why, you—” 

Wingate thought momentarily 
that the man was going to strike him. 
He interrupted: 

“Be careful what you do. You 
are apparently the victim of an hon- 
est mistake — but your legal position 
will be very shaky indeed if you dis- 
regard the requirements of space- 
wise law, under which this vessel is 
licensed. I don’t think your captain 
would be pleased to have to explain 
such actions on your part in Federal 
court.” 

That he had gotten the man angry 
was evident. But a man does not 
get to be chief police officer of a ma- 
jor transport by jeopardizing his su- 
perior officers. His jaw muscles 
twitched, but he pressed a button, 
saying nothing. A junior master at 
arms appeared. “Take this man to 
the purser.” He turned his back in 
dismissal and dialed a number on 
the ship’s intercommunication sys- 
tem. 

Wingate was let in to see the 
purser, ex-officio company business 
agent, after only a short wait. 
“What’s this all about?” that officer 
demanded. “If you have a com- 
plaint, why can’t you present it at 
the morning bearings in the regular 
order?” 

Wingate explained his predicament 
as clearly, convincingly, and persua- 
sively as he knew how. “And so you 
see,” he concluded, “I want to be put 
aground at Luna City. I’ve no de- 
sire to cause the company any em- 
barrassment over what was undoubt- 
edly an unintentional mishap — par- 
ticularly as I am forced to admit that 
I had been celebrating rather freely 
and, perhaps, in some manner, con- 
tributed to the mistake. 



14 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



The purser, who had listened non- 
eommitally to his recital, made no 
answer. He shuffled through a high 
stack of file folders which rested on 
one corner of his desk, selected one 
and opened it. It contained a sheaf 
of legal-size papers clipped together 
at the top. These he studied lei- 
surely for several minutes while Win- 
gate stood waiting. 

The purser breathed with an asth- 
matic noisiness while he read, and 
from time to time drummed on his 
bared teeth with his fingernails. 
W T ingate had about decided, in his 
none-too-steady nervous condition, 
that if the man raised his hand to 
his mouth just once more, he, Win- 
gate, would scream and start throw- 
ing things. At this point the purser 
chucked the dossier across the desk 
toward Wingate. “Better have a 
look at these,” he said. 

Wingate did so. The main exhibit 
he found to be a contract, duly en- 
tered into between Humphrey Win- 
gate and the Venus Development 
Co. for six years of indentured labor 
on the planet Venus. 

“That your signature?” asked the 
purser. 

Wingate’s professional caution 
stood him in good stead. He stud- 
ied the signature closely in order to 
gain time while he tried to collect his 
wits. “Well,” he said at last, “I will 
stipulate that it looks very much like 
my signature, but I will not concede 
that it is my signature. I’m not a 
handwriting expert.” 

The purser brushed aside the ob- 
jection with an air of annoyance. “I 
haven’t time to quibble with you. 
Let’s check the thumb print. Here.” 
He shoved an impression pad across 
his desk. For a moment Wingate 
considered standing on his legal 
rights by refusing, but no, that would 
prejudice his case. He had nothing 



to lose; it couldn’t be his thumb print 
on the contract. Unless — 

But it was. Even his untrained 
eye could see that the two prints 
matched. He fought back a surge of 
panic. This was probably a night- 
mare, inspired by his argument last 
night with Jones. Or, if by some 
wild chance it were real, it was a 
frame-up in which he must find the 
flaw. Men of his sort were not 
framed; the whole thing was ridicu- 
lous. He marshaled his words care- 
fully. 

“I won’t dispute your position, my 
dear sir. In some fashion both you 
and I have been made the victims of 
a rather sorry joke. It seems hardly 
necessary to point out that a man 
who is unconscious, as I must have 
been last night, may have his thumb 
print taken without his knowledge. 
Superficially, this contract is valid, 
and I assume, naturally, your good 
faith in the matter. But, in fact, the 
instrument lacks one necessary ele- 
ment of a contract.” 

“Which is?” 

“The intention on the part of both 
parties to enter into a contractual 
relationship. Notwithstanding sig- 
nature and thumb print, I had no 
intention of contracting, which can 
easily be shown by other factors. I 
am a successful lawyer with a good 
practice, as my tax returns will show. 
It is not reasonable to believe — and 
no court will believe — that I volun- 
tarily gave up my accustomed life for 
six years of indenture at a much 
lower income.” 

“So you’re a lawyer, eh? Perhaps 
there has been chicanery — on your 
part. How does it happen that you 
represent yourself here as a radio 
technician?” He pointed to the con- 
tract. 

Wingate again had to steady him- 
self at this unexpected flank attack. 
He was, in truth, a radio expert — it 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



15 



was his cherished hobby — but how 
had they known? Shut up, he told 
himself. Don't admit anything. 
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” he 
protested. “I insist that I be taken 
to see the captain. I can break that 
contract in ten minutes’ time.” 

The purser waited before replying. 
“Are you through speaking your 
piece?"' 

“Yes.” 

“Very well. You’ve had your say, 
now I’ll have mine. You listen to 
me, Mr. Spacelawyer. That con- 
tract was drawn up by some of the 
shrewdest legal minds in two planets. 
They had specifically in mind that 
worthless bums would sign it, drink 
up their bounty money, and then 
decide that they didn’t want to go 
to work after all. That contract has 
been subjected to every sort of at- 
tack possible and revised so that it 
can’t be broken by the devil himself. 

“You're not peddling your curb- 
stone law to another stumblebum in 
this case; you are talking to a man 
who knows just where he stands le- 
gally. As for seeing the captain — if 
you think the commanding officer of 
a major vessel has nothing more to 
do than listen to the rhira dreams of 
a self-appointed word artist, you’ve 
got another think coming! Return 
to your quarters!” 

Wingate started to speak, thought 
better of it, and turned to go. This 
would require some thought. The 
purser stopped him. “Wait. Here’s 
your copy of the contract.” He 
chucked it, the flimsy wfiite sheets 
riffled to the deck. Wingate picked 
them up and left silently. 

Haktley was waiting for him in 
the passageway. “How’dja make 
out. Hump?” 

“Not so well No, I don’t want to 
talk about it. I’ve got to think.” 

They w r alked silently back the way 



they had come toward the ladder 
which gave access to the lower decks. 
A figure ascended from the ladder 
and came toward them. Wingate 
noted it without interest. 

He looked again. Suddenly the 
whole preposterous chain of events 
fell into place; he shouted in relief. 
“Sam!” he called out. “Sam — you 
cockeyed old so-and-so. I should 
have spotted your handiwork.” It 
was all clear now 7 ; Sam had framed 
him with a phony shanghai. Proba- 
bly the skipper was a pal of Sam’s — 
a reserve officer, maybe — and they 
had cooked it up between them. It 
was a rough sort of joke, but he 
wus too relieved to be angry. Just 
the same, he would make Jones pay 
for his fun somehow on the jump 
back from Luna Citv. 

It was then that he noticed that 
Jones was not laughing. 

Furthermore, he w'as dressed — 
most unreasonably — in the same 
blue denim that the contract labor- 
ers wore. “Hump,” he was saying, 
“are you still drunk?” 

“Me? No. What’s the id—” 
“Don’t you realize w’e are in a 
jam? 

“Oh, hell, Sam, a joke’s a joke, but 
don’t keep it up any longer. I’ve 
caught on, I tell you. I don’t mind. 
It was a good gag.” 

“Gag, eh?” said Jones bitterly. “I 
suppose it w f as just a gag when you 
talked me into signing up.” 

“/ persuaded you to sign up?” 
“You certainly did. You were so 
damn sure you knew what you were 
talking about. You claimed that we 
could sign up, spend a month or so 
on Venus, and come home. You 
wanted to bet on it. So we went 
around to the docks and signed up. 
It seemed like a good idea then — the 
only way to settle the argument.” 
Wingate whistled softly. “Well, 
I’ll be — Sam, I haven’t the slight- 



16 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



est recollection of it. I must have 
drawn a blank before I passed out.” 
‘‘Yeah, I guess so. Too bad you 
didn’t pass out sooner. Not that I’m 
blaming you; you didn’t drag me. 
Anyhow, I’m on my way up to try 
to straighten it out.” 

‘‘Better wait a minute till you hear 
what happened to me. Oh, yes — 
Sam, this is . . . uh . . . Satchel 
Hartley. Good sort.” Hartley had 
been w-aiting uncertainly near them; 
he stepped forward and shook hands. 

Wingate brought Jones up to date 
and added, ‘So you see, your recep- 
tion isn't likely to be too friendly. 



I guess I muffed it. But we are sure 
to break the contract as soon as we 
can get a hearing on time alone.” 
“How do you mean?” 

“We were signed up less than 
twelve hours before ship lifting. 
That’s contrary to the Space Precau- 
tionary Act.” 

“Yes . . . yes, I see what you 
mean. The Moon’s in her last quar- 
ter; they would lift the ship some- 
time after midnight to take advan- 
tage of favorable Earth swing. I 
wonder what time it was when we 
signed on?” 

Wingate took out his contract 




“Shanghaied!” he groaned. “My head — !” 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



17 



copy. The notary’s stamp showed a 
time of eleven thirty-two. “Great 
day!” he shouted. “I knew there 
would be a flaw in it somewhere. 
This contract is invalid on its face. 
The ship’s log will prove it.” 

Jones studied it. “Look again,” 
he said. Wingate did so. The stamp 
showed eleven thirty -two, but a. m., 
not p. in. 

“But that’s impossible,” he pro- 
tested. 

“Of course it is. But it’s official. 
I think we will find that the story 
is that we were signed on in the 
morning, paid our bounty money, 
and had one last glorious luau before 
we were carried aboard. I seem to 
recollect some trouble in getting the 
recruiter to sign us up. Maybe we 
convinced him by kicking in our 
bounty money.” 

“But we didn’t sign up in the 
morning. It’s not true, and I can 
prove it.” 

“Sure, you can prove it — but how 
can you prove it without going back 
to Earth first!" 

“So you see it’s this way,” Jones 
decided after some minutes of some- 
what fruitless discussion, “there is no 
sense in trying to break our contracts 
here and now; they’ll laugh at us. 
The thing to do is to make money 
talk, and talk loud. The only way I 
can see to get us off at Luna City is 
to post nonperformance bonds with 
the company bank there — and damn 
big ones, too.” 

“How big?” 

“Twenty thousand credits at least, 
I should guess.” 

“But that’s not equitable — it’s all 
out of proportion.” 

“Quit worrying about equity, will 
you? Can’t you realize that they’ve 
got us where the hair is short? This 
won’t be a bond set by a court rul- 
ing; it’s got to be big enough to make 



a minor company official take a 
chance on doing something that’s not 
in the book.” 

“I can’t raise such a bond.” 

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take 
care of it.” 

Wingate wanted to argue the 
point, but did not. There are times 
when it is very convenient to have a 
wealthy friend. 

“I’ve got to get a radiogram off to 
my sister,” Jones went on, “to get 
this done — ” 

“Why your sister? Why not your 
family firm?” 

“Because we need fast action, 
that’s why. The lawyers that handle 
our family finances would fiddle and 
fume around trying to confirm the 
message. They’d send a message 
back to the captain asking if Sam 
Houston Jones were really aboard, 
and he would answer ‘no,’ as I’m 
stamped in as Sam Jones. I had 
some silly idea of staying out of the 
news broadcasts on account of the 
family.” 

“You can’t blame them,” pro- 
tested Wingate, feeling an obscure 
clannish loyalty to his colleagues in 
law; “they’re handling other peoples’ 
money.” 

“I’m not blaming them. But I’ve 
got to have fast action, and sis’ll 
do what I ask her. I’ll phrase the 
message so she’ll know it’s me. The 
only hurdle now is to persuade the 
purser to let me send a message on 
tick.” 

He was gone for a long time on this 
mission. Hartley waited with Win- 
gate, both to keep him company and 
because of a strong human interest 
in unusual events. When Jones 
finally appeared he wore a look of 
tight-lipped annoyance. Wingate, 
seeing the expression, felt a sudden, 
chilling apprehension. “Couldn’t 
you send it? Wouldn’t he let you?” 
“Oh, he let me — finally,” Jones ad- 



18 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



mitted, “but that purser — man, is he 
tight!” 

Even without the alarm gongs, 
Wingate would have been acutely 
aware of the grounding at Luna City. 
The sudden change from the high 
gravity deceleration of their ap- 
proach to the weak surface gravity 
— one-sixth Earth normal — of the 
Moon, took immediate toll on his 
abused stomach. It was well that 
he had not eaten much. Both Hart- 
ley and Jones were deep-space men 
and regarded enough acceleration to 
permit normal swallowing as ade- 
quate for any purpose. There is a 
curious lack of sympathy between 
those who are subject to space sick- 
ness and those who are immune to 
it. Why the spectacle of a man re- 
gurgitating, choked, eyes streaming 
with tears, stomach knotted with 
pain, should seem funny is difficult 
to see, but there it is. It divides the 
human race into two distinct and 
antipathetic groups — amused con- 
tempt on one side; helpless, murder- 
ous hatred on the other. 

Neither Hartley nor Jones had the 
inherent sadism which is too fre- 
quently evident on such occasions — 
for example, the great wit who sug- 
gests salt pork as a remedy — but, 
feeling no discomfort themselves, 
they w r ere simply unable to compre- 
hend — having forgotten the soul- 
twisting intensity of their own ex- 
perience as new chums — that Win- 
gate was literally suffering “a fate 
worse than death” — much worse, for 
it was stretched into a sensible eter- 
nity by a distortion of the time sense 
known only to sufferers from space 
sicknesses, seasicknesses, and — we 
are told — smokers of hashish. 

As a matter of fact, the stop on 
the Moon was less than four hours 
long. Toward the end of the wait, 
Wingate had quieted down suffi- 
ciently again to take an interest in 



the expected reply to Jones’ message, 
particularly after Jones had assured 
him that he would be able to spend 
the expected lay-over under bond at 
Luna City in a hotel equipped with 
a centrifuge. 

But the answer was delayed. 
Jones had expected to hear from his 
sister within an hour, perhaps before 
the Evening Star grounded at the 
Luna City docks. As the hours 
stretched out he managed to make 
himself very unpopular at the radio 
room by his repeated inquiries. An 
overworked clerk had sent him 
brusquely about his business for the 
seventeenth time when he heard the 
alarm sound preparatory to raising 
ship; he went back and admitted to 
Wingate that his scheme had appar- 
ently failed. 

“Of course, we’ve got ten minutes 
yet,” he finished unhopefully. “If 
the message should arrive before 
they raise ship, the captain could 
still put us aground at the last min- 
ute. We’ll go back and haunt ’em 
some more right up to the last. But 
it looks like a thin chance.” 

“Ten minutes,” said Wingate. 
“Couldn’t we manage somehow to 
slip outside and run for it?” 

Jones looked exasperated. “Have 
you ever tried running in a total 
vacuum?” 

Wingate had very little time in 
which to fret on the passage from 
Luna City to Venus. He learned a 
great deal about the care and clean- 
ing of washrooms, and spent ten 
hours a day perfecting his new skill. 
Masters at arms have long memories. 

The Evening Star passed beyond 
the limits of ship-to-Terra radio com- 
munication shortly after leaving 
Luna City; there was nothing to do 
but wait until arrival at Adonis, port 
of the North Polar colony. The com- 
pany radio there was strong enough 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



19 



to remain in communication at all 
times except for the sixty days brack- 
eting superior conjunction and a 
shorter period of solar interference at 
inferior conjunction. 

“They will probably be waiting 
for us with a release order when we 
ground,” Jones assured Wingate, 
“and we’ll go back on the return trip 
of the Evening Star — first-class this 
time. Or, at the very worst, we’ll 
have to wait over for the Morning 
Star. That wouldn’t be so bad, once 
I get some credit transferred; we 
could spend it at Venusburg.” 

“I suppose you went there on your 
cruise,” Wingate said, curiosity show- 
ing in his voice. He was no Sybarite, 
but the lurid reputation of the most 
infamous, or famous — depending on 
one’s evaluations — pleasure city of 
three planets was enough to stir the 
imagination of the least hedonistic. 

“No — worse luck!” Jones denied. 
“I was on a null-inspection board the 
whole time. Some of my messmates 
went, though — boy!” He whistled 
softly and shook his head. 

But there was no one awaiting 
their arrival, nor was there any mes- 
sage. Again they stood around the 
communication office until told 
sharply and officially to get on back 
to their quarters and stand by to 
disembark, “ — and be quick about 
it!” 

“I’ll see you in the receiving bar- 
racks, Hump,” were Jones’ last words 
before he hurried off to his own com- 
partment. 

The master at arms responsible for 
the compartment in which Hartley 
and Wingate were billeted lined his 
charges up in a rough column of twos 
and, when ordered to do so by the 
metallic bray of the ship’s loud- 
speaker, led them through the central 
passageway and down four decks 
to the lower passenger port. It stood 
open; they shuffled through the lock 

AST— 2 



and out of the ship — not into the 
free air of Venus, but into a sheet- 
metal tunnel which joined it, after 
some fifty yards, to a building. 

The air within the tunnel was still 
acrid from the atomized antiseptic 
with which it had been flushed out, 
but to Wingate it w as nevertheless 
fresh and stimulating after the stale 
flatness of the repeatedly recondi- 
tioned air of the transport. Thai, 
plus the surface gravity of Venus, 
five sixths of Earth normal, strong 
enough to prevent nausea, yet low 
enough to produce a feeling of light- 
ness and strength — these things com- 
bined to give him an irrational opti- 
mism, an up-and-at-’em frame of 
mind. 

The exit from the tunnel gave into 
a moderately large room, windowless 
but brilliantly and glarelessly lighted 
from concealed sources. It contained 
no furniture. 

“Squa-a-ad — halt!'’ called out the 
master at arms, and handed papers 
to a slight, clerkish -appearing man 
who stood near an inner doorway. 
The man glanced at the papers, 
counted the detachment, then signed 
one sheet, which he handed back to 
the ship’s petty officer, who accepted 
it and returned through the tunnel. 

The clerkish man turned to the im- 
migrants. He was dressed, Wingate 
noted, in nothing but the briefest of 
shorts, hardly more than a strap, and 
his entire body, even his feet, was a 
smooth, mellow tan. “Now r , men,” 
he said in a mild voice, “strip off your 
clothes and put them in the hopper.” 
He indicated a fixture set in one wall. 

“Why?” asked Wingate. His man- 
ner was uncontentious, but he made 
no move to comply. 

“Come, now,” he was answered, 
still mildly, but with a note of an- 
noyance, “don’t argue. It’s for your 
own protection. We can’t afford to 
import disease.” 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



2D 



Wingate checked a reply and un- 
zipped his coverall. Several who had 
paused to hear the outcome followed 
his example. Suits, shoes, under- 
clothing, socks, they all went into the 
hopper. 

“Follow me,” said their guide. 

In the next room the naked herd 
were confronted by four “barbers” 
armed with electric clippers and las- 
tex gloves who proceeded to clip 
them smooth. Again Wingate felt 
disposed to argue, but decided the 
issue was not worth it . But he won- 
dered if the female labor clients were 
required to submit to such drastic 
quarantine precautions. It would be 
a shame, it seemed to him, to sacri- 
fice a beautiful head of hair that had 
been twenty years in growing. 

The succeeding room was a shower 
room. A curtain of warm spray com- 
pletely blocked passage through the 
room. Wingate entered it unreluc- 
tantly, even eagerly, and fairly wal- 
lowed in the first decent bath he 
had been able to take since leaving 
Earth. They were plentifully sup- 
plied with liquid green soap, strong 
and smelly, but which lathered 
freely. Half a dozen attendants, 
dressed as skimpily as their guide, 
stood on the far side of the wall of 
water and saw to it that the squad 
remained under the shower a fixed 
time and scrubbed. In some cases 
they made highly personal sugges- 
tions to insure thoroughness. Each 
of them wore a red cross on a white 
field affixed to his belt which lent 
justification to their officiousness. 

Blasts of warm air in the exit pas- 
sageway dried them quickly and 
completely. 

“Hold still.” 

Wingate complied. The bored hos- 
pital orderly who had spoken dabbed 
at Wingate’s upper arm with a swab 



which felt cold to touch, then 
scratched the spot. 

“That’s all, move on.” 

Wingate added himself to the 
queue at the next table. The experi- 
ence was repeated on the other arm. 
By the time he had worked down to 
the far end of the room the outer 
sides of each arm were covered with 
little red scratches, more than twenty 
of them. 

“What’s this all about?” he asked 
the hospital clerk at the end of the 
line, who had counted his scratches 
and checked his name off a list. 

“Skin tests — to check your resist- 
ances and immunities.” 

“Resistance to what?” 

“Anything. Both terrestrial and 
Venusian diseases. Fungoids, the 
Venus ones are, mostly. Move on, 
you’re holding up the line.” 

He heard more about it later. It 
took from two to three weeks to re- 
condition the ordinary terrestrial to 
Venus conditions. Until that recon- 
ditioning was complete and immu- 
nity was established to the new haz- 
ards of another planet it was literally 
death to an earthman to expose his 
skin and particularly his mucous 
membranes to the ravenous invisible 
parasites of the surface of Venus. 

The ceaseless fight of life against 
life which is the dominant character- 
istic of life anywhere proceeds with 
especial intensity, under conditions 
of high metabolism, in the steamy 
jungles of Venus. The general bac- 
teriophage which has so nearly elimi- 
nated disease caused by pathogenic 
micro-organisms on Earth was found 
capable of a subtle modification 
which made it. potent against the 
analogous but different diseases of 
Venus. The hungry fungi were an- 
other matter. 

Imagine the worst of the fungoid- 
type skin diseases you have ever en- 
countered — ringworm, dhobie itch. 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



21 



athlete’s foot, Chinese rot, salt-water 
itch, seven-year itch. Add to that 
your conception of mold, of damp 
rot, of scale, of toadstools feeding on 
decay. Then conceive them speeded 
up in their processes, visibly crawl- 
ing as you watch — picture them at- 
tacking your eyeballs, your armpits, 
the soft wet tissues inside your 
mouth, working down into your 
lungs. 

The first Venus expedition was 
lost entirely. The. second had a sur- 
geon with sufficient imagination to 
provide what seemed a liberal supply 
of salicylic acid and mercury salicy- 
late as well as a small ultraviolet ra- 
diator. Three of them returned. 

But permanent colonization de- 
pends on adaptation to environment, 
not insulating against it. Luna City 
might be cited as a case which denies 
this proposition, but it is only super- 
ficially so. While it is true that the 
“lunatics” are absolutely dependent 
on their city-wide hermetically- 
sealed air bubble, Luna City is not. a 
self-sustaining colony; it is an out- 
post, useful as a mining station, as 
an observatory, as a refueling stop 
beyond the densest portion of Terra’s 
gravitational field. 

Venus is a colony. The colonists 
breathe the air of Venus, eat its food, 
and expose their skins to its climate 
and natural hazards. Only the cold 
polar regions — approximately the 
equivalent in weather conditions to 
an Amazonian jungle on a hot day 
in the rainy season — are tenable by 
terrestrials, but here they slop bare- 
footed on the marshy soil in a true 
ecological balance. 



taurant equivalent to the food bud- 
get for a week of a middle-class 
family. Later he located his as- 
signed sleeping billet. Thereafter he 
attempted to locate Sam Houston 
Jones. He could find no sign of him 
among the other labor clients, nor 
anyone who remembered having seen 
him. He was advised by one of the 
permanent staff of the conditioning 
station to inquire of the factor’s 
clerk. This he did, in the ingratiat- 
ing manner he had learned it was 
wise to use in dealing with minor 
functionaries. 

“Come back in the morning. The 
lists will be posted.” 

“Thank you,, sir. Sorry to have 
bothered you, but I can’t find him, 
and I was afraid he might have taken 
sick or something. Could you tell 
me if he is on the sick list?” 

“Oh, well — Wait a minute.” The 
clerk thumbed through his records. 
“Hm-m-m — you say he was in the 
Evening Star?” 

“Yes', sir.” 

“Well, he’s not. M-m-m, no — oh, 
yes, here he is. He didn’t disembark 
here.” 

“What did you say?” 

“He went on with the Evening 
Star to New Auckland, South Pole. 
He’s stamped in as a machinist’s 
helper. If you had told me that I’d 
’a’ known. All the metal workers in 
this consignment were sent to work 
on the new South Power Station.” 
After a moment Wingate pulled 
himself together enough to murmur, 
“Thanks for your trouble.” 

“ ’Sail right. Don’t mention it.” 
The clerk turned away. 



Wingate ate the meal that was South Pole Colony! He mut- 
offered to him — satisfactory but tered it to himself. South Pole 
roughly served and dull, except for Colony — his only friend twelve thou- 
Venus sweet-sour melon. The por- sand miles away. At last Wingate 
tion which he ate would have fetched felt alone, alone and trapped, aban- 
a price in a Chicago gourmets’ res- doned. During the short interval 



22 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



between waking up aboard the trans- 
port and finding Jones also aboard 
he bad not had time fully to Appre- 
ciate his predicament, nor had he, 
then, lost his upper-class arrogance, 
the innate conviction that it could 
not be serious — such things just 
don’t happen to people; not to peo- 
ple one kno ws ! 

But in the meantime he had suf- 
fered such assaults to his human dig- 
nity — the chief master at arms had 
seen to some of it — that he was no 
longer certain of his essential inviola- 
bility from unjust or arbitrary treat- 
ment. But now, shaved and bathed 
without his consent, stripped of his 
clothing and attired in a harnesslike 
breechclout, transported millions of 
miles from his social matrix, subject 
to the orders of persons indifferent 
to his feelings and who claimed legal 
control over his person and actions, 
and now, most bitterly, cut off from 
the one human contact which had 
given him support and courage and 
hope, he realized at last with chill- 
ing thoroughness that anything could 
happen to him, to him, Humphrey 
Belmont Wingate, successful attor- 
ney at law and member of all the 
right clubs. 

“Wingate!” 

“That’s you, Jack. Go on in — 
don’t keep them waiting.” 

Wingate pushed through the door- 
way and found himself in a fairly 
crowded room. Thirty-odd men were 
seated around the sides of the room. 
Near the door a clerk sat at a desk, 
busy with papers. One brisk-man- 
nered individual stood in the cleared 
space between the chairs near a low 
platform on which all the illumina- 
tion of the room was concentrated. 

The clerk at the door looked up 
to say, “Step up where they can see 
you.” He pointed a stylus at the 
platform. 



Wingate moved forward and did 
as he was bade, blinking at the bril- 
liant light. 

“Contract No. 482-23-06,” read 
the clerk, “client Humphrey Win- 
gate, six years, radio technician non- 
certified, pay grade six-D, contract 
now available for assignment.” 

Three weeks it had taken them to 
condition him, three weeks with no 
word from Jones. He had passed 
his exposure test without infection; 
he was about to enter the active pe- 
riod of his indenture. 

The brisk man spoke up close on 
the last words of the clerk: 

“Now here, patrons, if you please 
— we have an exceptionally promis- 
ing man. I hardly dare tell you the 
ratings lie received on his intelli- 
gence, adaptability, and general- 
information tests. In fact, T won’t, 
except to tell you that administra- 
tion has put in a protective offer of 
a thousand credits. But it would be 
a shame to use any such client for 
the routine work of administration 
when we need good men so badly to 
wrest wealth from the wilderness. I 
venture to predict that the lucky 
bidder who obtains the services of 
this client will be using him as a fore- 
man within a month. But look him 
over for yourselves, talk to him, and 
see for yourselves.” 

The clerk whispered something to 
the speaker. He nodded and added, 
“I am required to notify you, gentle- 
men and patrons, that this client has 
given the usual legal notice of two 
weeks, subject, of course, to liens of 
record.” He laughed jovially and 
cocked one eyebrow as if there were 
some huge joke behind his remarks. 
No one paid attention to the an- 
nouncement; to a limited extent, 
Wingate appreciated wryly the na- 
ture of the jest. He had given no- 
tice the day after lie discovered that 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



S3 



Jones had been sent to South Pole 
Colony, and had found that while he 
was free theoretically to quit, it was 
freedom to starve on Venus, unless 
he first worked out his bounty and 
his passage both ways. 

Several of the patrons gathered 
around the platform and looked him 
over, discussing him as they did so. 
“Not too well muscled.” “I’m not 
overeager to bid on these smart boys; 
they’re trouble makers.” “No, but 
a stupid client isn’t worth his keep.” 
“What can he do? I’m going to have 
a look at his record.” They drifted 
over to the clerk’s desk and scruti- 
nized the results of the many tests 
and examinations that Wingate had 
undergone during his period of quar- 
antine. All but one beady-eyed in- 
dividual who sidled up closer to Win- 
gate, and, resting one foot on the 
platform so that he could bring his 
face nearer, spoke in confidential 
tones: 

“I’m not interested in those phony 
puff sheets, bub. Tell me about 
yourself.” 

“There’s not much to tell.” 

“Loosen up. You’ll like my place. 
Just like a home — I run a free crock 
to Venusburg for my boys. Had 
any experience handling niggers?” 

“No.” 

“Well, the natives ain’t niggers, 
anyhow, except in a manner of speak- 
ing. You look like you could boss 
a gang. Had any experience?” 

“Not much.” 

“Well — maybe you’re modest. I 
like a man who keeps his mouth shut. 
And my boys like me. I never let 
my pusher take kick-backs.” 

“No,” put in another patron who 
had returned to the side of the plat- 
form, “you save that for yourself, 
Rigsbee.” 

“You stay out o’ this, Van Huy- 
sen!” 



The newcomer, a heavy-set, mid- 
dle-aged man, ignored the other and 
.addressed Wingate himself. “You 
have given notice. Why?” 

“The whole thing was a mistake. 
I was drunk.” 

“Will you do honest work in the 
meantime?” 

Wingate considered this. “Yes,” 
he said finally. The heavy-set man 
nodded and walked heavily back to 
his chair, settling his broad girth 
with care and giving his harness a 
hitch. 

When the others were seated the 
spokesman announced cheerfully, 
“Now, gentlemen, if you are quite 
through — Let’s hear an opening 
offer for this contract. I wish I could 
afford to bid him in as my assistant 
— by George, I do! Now— do I hear 
an offer?” 

“Six hundred.” 

“Please, patrons! Did you not 
hear me mention a protection of one 
thousand?” 

“I don’t think you mean it. He’s 
a sleeper.” 

The company agent raised his eye- 
brows. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to ask 
the client to step down from the plat- 
form.” 

But before Wingate could do so, 
another voice said, “One thousand.” 

“Now that’s better!” exclaimed the 
agent. “I should have known that 
you gentlemen wouldn’t let a real 
opportunity escape you. But a ship 
can’t fly on one jet. Do I hear eleven 
hundred? Come, patrons, you can’t 
make your fortunes without clients. 
Do I hear—” 

“Eleven hundred.” 

“Eleven hundred from Patron 
Rigsbee! And a bargain it would be 
at that price. But I doubt if you 
will get it. Do I hear twelve?” 

The heavy-set man flicked a 
thumb upward. “Twelve hundred 
from Patron van Huy sen. I see I’ve 



«4 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



made a mistake and am wasting your 
time; the intervals should be not less 
than two hundred. Do I hear four- 
teen? Do I hear fourteen? Going 
once for twelve. Going twi — ” 
“Fourteen,” Rigsbee said sullenly. 
“Seventeen,” Van Huysen added 
at once. 

“Eighteen,” snapped Rigsbee. 
“No-o-o,” said the agent, “no in- 
terval of less than two, please.” 

“All right, dammit, nineteen!” 
“Nineteen I hear. It’s a hard num- 
ber to write; who’ll make it twenty- 
one?” Van Huysen’s thumb flicked 
again. “Twenty-one it is. It takes 
money to make money. What do I 
hear? What do I hear?” He paused. 
“Going once for twenty-one. Going 
twice for twenty-one. Are you giv- 
ing up so easily, Patron Rigsbee?” 
“Van Huysen is a-—” The rest 
was muttered too indistinctly to 
hear. 

“One more chance, gentlemen. 
Going, going — gone!” He smacked 
his palms sharply together. “Sold 
to Patron van Huysen for twenty- 
one hundred credits. My congratu- 
lations, sir, on a shrewd deal.”- 
Wingate followed his new master 
out the far door. They were stopped 
in the passageway by Rigsbee. “All 
right, Van, you've had your fun. I’ll 
cut your losses for two thousand.” 
“Out of my vay.” 

“Don’t be a fool. He’s no bar- 
gain. You don’t know how to sweat 
a man — I do,” 

Van Huysen ignored him, pushing 
on past. Wingate followed him out 
into warm winter drizzle to the park- 
ing lot, where steel crocodiles were 
drawn up in parallel rows. Van 
Huysen paused beside a thirty-foot 
Remington. “Get in.” 

The long boxlike body of the 
crock was stowed to its load line 
with supplies Van Huysen had pur- 



chased at the base. Sprawled on 
the tarpaulin which covered the 
cargo were half a dozen men. One 
of them stirred as Wingate climbed 
over the side. “Hump! Oh, Hump!” 

It was Hartley. Wingate was sur- 
prised at his own surge of emotion. 
He gripped Hartley's hand and ex- 
changed friendly insults. 

“Chums,” said Hartley, “meet 
Hump Wingate. He’s a right guy. 
Hump, meet the gang. That’s Jim- 
mie right behind you. He rassles 
this velocipede.” 

The man designated gave Wingate 
a bright nod and moved forward 
into the operator’s seat. At a wave 
from Van Huysen, who had seated 
his bulk in the little sheltered cabin 
aft, he pulled back on both control 
levers and the crocodile crawled 
away, its caterpillar treads clanking 
and chunking through the mud. 

Three of the six were old-timers, 
including Jimmie, the driver. They 
had come along to handle cargo, the 
ranch products which the patron had 
brought in to market and the sup- 
plies he had purchased to take back. 
Van Huysen had bought the con- 
tracts of two other clients in addi- 
tion to Wingate and Satchel Hart- 
ley. Wingate recognized them as 
men he had known casually in the 
Evening Star and at the assignment 
and conditioning station. They 
looked a little woebegone, which 
Wingate could thoroughly under- 
stand, but the men from the x’anch 
seemed to be enjoying themselves. 
They appeared to regard the oppor- 
tunity to ride a load to and from 
town as an outing. They sprawled 
on the tarpaulin and passed the time 
gossiping and getting acquainted 
with the new chums. 

But they asked no personal ques- 
tions. No labor client on Venus ever 
asked Wingate anything about what 
he had been before he shipped with 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



25 



the company unless he first volun- 
teered information. It “wasn’t 
done.” 

Shortly after leaving the outskirts 
of Adonis, the car slithered down a 
sloping piece of ground, teetered over 
a low bank, and splashed loggily into 
water. Van Huysen threw up a 
window in the bidkhead which sepa- 
rated the cabin from the hold and 
shouted, “Dumkopf! How many 
times do I tell you to take those 
launchings slowly?” 

“Sorry, boss,” Jimmie answered, 
“I missed it.” 

“You keep your eyes peeled or I 
get me a new eroeker!” He slammed 
the port. 

Jimmie glanced around and gave 
the other clients a sly wink. He had 
his hands full; the marsh they were 
traversing looked like solid ground, 
so heavily was it overgrown with 
rank vegetation. The crocodile now 
functioned as a boat, the broad 
flanges of the treads acting as pad- 
dle wheels. The wedge-shaped prow 
pushed shrubs and marsh grass 
aside, or struck and ground down 
small trees. Occasionally the lugs 
would bite into the mud of a shoal 
bottom, and, crawling over a bar, 
return temporarily to the status of 
a land vehicle. Jimmie’s slender, 
nervous hands moved constantly 
over the controls, avoiding large 
trees and continually seeking the 
easiest, most nearly direct route, 
while he split his attention between 
the terrain and the craft’s compass. 

Presently the conversation lagged 
and one of the ranch hands started 
to sing. He had a passable tenor 
voice and was soon joined by others. 
Wingate found himself singing the 
choruses as fast as he learned them. 
They sang “Pay Book” and “Since 
the Pusher Met My Cousin,” and a 
mournful thing called “They Found 
Him in the Bush.” But this was fol- 



lowed by a light number, “The Night 
the Rain Stopped,” which seemed to 
have an endless string of verses re- 
counting various unlikely happen- 
ings which occurred on that occa- 
sion. 

Jimmie drew applause and en- 
thusiastic support in the choruses 
with a ditty entitled “That Red- 
headed Vennsburg Girl,” but Win- 
gate considered it inexcusably vul- 
gar. He did not have time to dwell 
on the matter: it was followed by a 
song which drove it out of his mind. 

The tenor started it, slowly and 
softly. The others sang the refrains 
while he rested — all but Wingate; he 
was silent and thoughtful through- 
out. In the triplet of the second 
verse the tenor dropped out and the 
others sang in his place. 

Oh, you stamp your paper and you sign 
your name, 

(Come away! Come away!) 

They pay your bounty and you drown your 
shame. 

(Rue the day! Rue the day!) 

'They land you down at Ellis Isle and put 
you in a pen; 

There you see what happens to the six-year 
men — 

They haven't paid their bounty and they 
sign ’em up again! 

(Here to stay ! Here to stay!) 

But me HI save my bounty and a ticket, 
on the ship, 

(So you say! So you say!) 

And then you’ll see me leavin' on the very 
next trip. 

(Come the day! Come the day!) 

Oh, we've heard that kinda story just a 
thousand times and one. 

Now we wouldn’t say you’re lyin’ but we’d 
like to see it done. 

We’ll see go'll next at Vennsburg a-payhi 
for your fun ! 

(Spoken slowly ) And you’ll never meet 
your bounty on this hitch! 

(Come away!) 

It left Wingate with a feeling of 
depression not entirely accounted for 
by the tepid drizzle, the unappetiz- 
ing landscape, nor by the blanket of 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



m 

pale mist which is the invariable 
Venusian substitute for the open sky. 
He withdrew to one corner of the 
hold and kept to himself until, much 
later, Jimmie shouted, “Lights 
ahead!” 

Wingate leaned out and peered 
eagerly toward his new home. 

Four weeks and no word from 
Sam Houston Jones. Venus had 
turned once on its axis, the fortnight 
long Venusian “winter” had given 
way to an equally short “summer” 
— indistinguishable from “winter” 
except that the rain was a trifle 
heavier and a little hotter — and now 
it was “winter” again. Van Huv- 
sen’s ranch, being near the pole, was, 
like most of the tenable area of 
Venus, never in darkness. The 
miles-thick, ever-present layer of 
clouds tempered the light of the low- 
hanging sun during the long day, 
and, equally, held the heat and dif- 
fused the light from a sun just be- 
low the horizon to produce a con- 
tinuing twilight during the two-week 
periods which were officially “night” 
or “winter.” 

Four weeks and no word. Four 
weeks and no sun, no moon, no stars, 
no dawn. No clean, crisp breath of 
morning air, no life-quickening beat 
of noonday sun, no welcome evening 
shadows, nothing, nothing at all to 
distinguish one sultry, sticky hour 
from the next but the treadmill rou- 
tine of sleep and work and food and 
sleep again — nothing but the gather- 
ing ache in his heart for the cool, 
blue skies of Terra. 

He had acceded to the invariable 
custom that new men should provide 
a celebration for the other clients 
and had signed the squeezer’s chits 
to obtain happy water — rhira — for 
the purpose — to discover, when first 
he signed the pay book, that his ges- 
ture of fellowship had cost him an- 



other four months of delay before he 
could legally quit his “job.” There- 
upon he had resolved never again to 
sign a chit, had foresworn the pros- 
pect of brief holidays at Venusburg, 
had promised himself to save every 
possible credit against his bounty 
and transportation liens. 

Whereupon he discovered that the 
mild alcoholoid drink was neither a 
vice nor a luxury, but a necessity, as 
necessary to human life on Venus as 
the ultraviolet factor present in all 
colonial illuminating systems. It 
produces not drunkenness, but light- 
ness of heart, freedom from worry, 
and without it he could not get to 
sleep. Three nights of self-recrimi- 
nation and fretting, three days of 
fatigue-drugged uselessness under 
the unfriendly eye of the pusher, and 
he had signed for his. bottle with the 
rest, even though dully aware that 
the price of the bottle had washed 
out more than half of the day’s mi- 
croscopic progress toward freedom. 

Nor had he been assigned to radio 
operation. Van Huvsen had an op- 
erator; Wingate, although listed on 
the books as stand-by operator, went 
to the swamps with the rest. He 
discovered on rereading his contract 
a clause which permitted his patron 
to do this, and he admitted with half 
his mind — the detached judicial and 
legalistic half — that the clause was 
reasonable and proper, not inequita- 
ble or unjust. 

Wingate went to the swamps. He 
learned to wheedle and bully the lit- 
tle, mild amphibian people into har- 
vesting the bulbous underwater 
growth of Hyacinth us Veneris John - 
soni — Venus swamproot — and bribe 
the co-operation of their matriarchs 
with promises of bonuses in the form 
of thigarek, a term which meant not 
only cigarette, but tobacco in any 
form, the staple medium in trade 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



87 



when dealing with the natives. 

He took his turn in the chopping 
sheds and learned, clumsily and 
slowly, to cut and strip the spongy 
outer husk from the pea-sized ker- 
nel which alone had commercial 
value and which must be removed 
intact, without scratch or bruise. 
The juice from the pods made his 
hands raw, and the odor made him 
cough and stung his eyes, but he en- 
joyed it more than the work in the 
marshes, for it threw him into the 
company of the female labor clients. 
Women were quicker at the work 
than men, and their smaller fingers 
more dexterous in removing the 
valuable, easily damaged capsule. 
Men were used for such work only 
when accumulated crops required ex- 
tra help. 

He learned his new trade from a 
motherly old person whom the other 
women addressed as Hazel. She 
talked as she worked, her gnarled old 
hands moving steadily and without 
apparent direction or skill. He could 
close his eyes and imagine that he 
was back on Earth and a boy again, 
hanging around his grandmother’s 
kitchen while she shelled peas and 
rambled on. 

“Don’t you fret yourself, boy,” 
Hazel told him. “Do your work and 
shame the devil. There’s a great 
day coming.” 

“What kind of a great dav. Ha- 
zel?” 

“The day when the angels of the 
Lord will rise up and smite the pow- 
ers of evil. 'The day when the prince 
of darkness will be cast down into 
the pit and the Prophet shall reign 
over the children of heaven. So 
don’t you worry; it doesn’t matter 
whether you are here or back home 
when the great day comes; the only 
thing that matters is your state of 
grace.” 



“Are you sure we will live long 
enough to see the day?” 

She glanced around, then leaned 
over confidentially. “The day is al- 
most upon us. Even now the 
Prophet moves up and down the 
land gathering his forces. Out of 
the clean farm country of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley there comes the man, 
known in this world” — she lowered 
her Amice still more — “as Nehemiah 
Scudder!” 

Wingate hoped that his start of 
surprise and amusement did not 
show externally. He recalled the 
name. It was that of a pipsqueak, 
back-woods evangelist, an unimpor- 
tant nuisance back on Earth, the 
butt of an occasional guying news 
story, but a man of no possible con- 
sequence. 

The chopping shed pusher moved 
up to their bench. “Keep your eyes 
on your work, you! You’re way be- 
hind now 7 .” Wingate hastened to 
comply, but Hazel came to his aid. 

“You leave him be, Joe Thomp- 
son. It takes time to learn chop- 
ping.” 

“O. K., Mom,” answered the 
pusher with a grin, “but keep him 
pluggin’. See?” 

“I will . You worry about the rest 
of the shed. This bench’ll have its 
quota.” Wingate had been docked 
two days running for spoilage. Ha- 
zel was lending him poundage now 
and the pusher knew it, but every- 
body liked her, even pushers, who 
are reputed to like no one, not even 
themselves. 

Wingate stood just outside the 
gate of the bachelors’ compound. 
There was yet fifteen minutes before 
lock-up roll call; he had walked out 
in a subconscious attempt to rid 
himself of the pervading feeling of 
claustrophobia which he had had 
throughout his stay. The attempt 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



23 

was futile; there was no “outdoor- 
ness” about the outdoors on Venus — 
the bush crowded the clearing in on 
itself, the leaden, misty sky pressed 
down on his head, and the steamy 
heat sat on bis bare chest. Still, it 
was better than the bunkroom in 
spite of its dehydrators. 

He had not yet obtained his eve- 
ning ration of rhira and felt, conse- 
quently, nervous and despondent, 
yet residual self-respect caused him 
to cherish a few minutes’ clear think- 
ing before he gave in to the cheerful 
soporific. 

It’s getting me, he thought; in a 
few more months I’ll be taking every 
chance to get to Venusburg, or, 
worse yet, signing a chit for married 
quarters and condemning myself and 
my kids to a life sentence. 

When he first arrived, the women 
clients, with their uniformly dull 
minds and usually commonplace 
faces, had seemed entirely unattrac- 
tive. Now, he realized with dismay, 
he was no longer so fussy. Why, 
he was even beginning to lisp, as the 
other clients did, in unconscious imi- 
tation of the amphibians. 

Early, he had observed that the 
clients could be divided roughly into 
two categories, the children of na- 
ture and the broken men. The first 
were those of little imagination and 
simple standards. In all probability 
they had known nothing better back 
on Earth; they saw in the colonial 
culture not slavery, but freedom 
from responsibility, security, and an 
occasional spree. The others were 
the broken men, the outcasts, they 
who had once been somebody, but, 
through some defect of character, or 
some accident, had lost their place 
in society. Perhaps the judge had 
said, “Sentence suspended if you 
ship for the colonies.” 

He realized with sudden panic 
that liis own status was crystalliz- 



ing; he was becoming one of the bro- 
ken men. His background on Earth 
was becoming dim in his mind; he 
had put off for the last three days 
the labor of writing another letter 
to Jones; he had spent the last shift 
rationalizing the necessity for taking 
a couple of days’ holiday at Venus- 
burg. 

Face it, son; face it, he told him- 
self. You’re slipping, you’re letting 
your mind relax into slave psy- 
chology. You’ve unloaded the prob- 
lem of getting out of this mess onto 
Jones — how do you know he can 
help you? For all you know, he may 
be dead. Out of the dimness of his 
memory he recaptured a phrase 
which he had read somewhere, some 
philosopher of history: “No slave is 
ever freed, save he free him self. 9 ’ 

All right, all right — pull up your 
socks, old son. Take a brace. No 
more rhira — no, that wasn’t practi- 
cal; a man had to have sleep. Very 
well, then, no rhira until lights out, 
keep your mind clear in the evenings 
and plan. Keep your eyes open, find 
out all you can, cultivate friendships, 
and w'atch for a chance. 

Through the gloom he saw a hu- 
man figure approaching the gate of 
the compound. As it approached he 
saw that it was a woman and sup- 
posed it to be one of the female cli- 
ents. She came closer; he saw that 
he was mistaken. It was Annek van 
Huysen, daughter of the patron. 

She was a husky, overgrown blond 
girl with unhappy eyes. He had 
seen her many times, watching the 
clients as they returned from their 
labor, or wandering alone around the 
ranch clearing. She was neither un- 
sightly, nor in anywise attractive; 
her heavy, adolescent figure needed 
more to flatter it than the harness 
which all colonists wore as the maxi- 
mum tolerable garment. 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



She stopped before him and, un- 
zipping the pouch at her waist which 
served in lieu of pockets, took out 
a package of cigarettes. “I found 
this back there. Did you lose it?” 

lie knew that she lied; she had 
picked up nothing since she had 
come into sight. And the brand was 
one smoked on Earth and by pat- 
rons — no client could afford such. 
What was she up to? 

He noted the eagerness in her face 
and the rapidity of her breathing, 
and realized, with confusion, that 
this girl was trying indirectly to 
make him a present. Why? 

W T ingate was not particularly con- 
ceited about his own physical beauty 
or charm, nor had he any reason to 
be. But what he had not realized 
was that among the common run of 
the clients he stood out like a cock 
pheasant in a barnyard. But that 
Annek found him pleasing he was 
forced to admit; there could be 
no other explanation for her 
trumped-up story and her pathetic 
little present. 

His first impulse was to snub her. 
He wanted nothing of her, and re- 
sented the invasion of his privacy; 
and he was vaguely aware that the 
situation could be awkward, even 
dangerous, to him, involving, as it 
did, violations of custom which jeop- 
ardized the whole social and eco- 
nomic structure. From the view- 
point of the patrons, labor clients 
were almost as much beyond the 
pale as the amphibians. A liaison 
between a labor client and one of the 
W'omenfolk of the patrons could 
easily wake up old Judge Lynch. 

But he had not the heart to be 
brusque with her. He could see the 
dumb adoration in her eyes; it would 
have required cold heartlessness to 
have repulsed her. Besides, there 
was nothing coy or provocative in 
her attitude; her manner was naive, 



almost childlike in its unsophistica- 
tion. He recalled his determination 
to make friends; here was friendship 
offered, a dangerous friendship, but 
one which might prove useful in win- 
ning free. 

He felt a momentary wave of 
shame that he should be weighing 
the potential usefulness of this de- 
fenseless child, but he suppressed it 
by affirming to himself that he would 
do her no harm; and, anyhow, there 
was the old saw' about the vindic- 
tiveness of a woman scorned. 

“Why, perhaps I did lose it,” he 
evaded, then added, “It’s my favo- 
rite brand.” 

“Is it?” she said happily. “Then 
do take it, in any case.” 

“Thank you. Will you smoke one 
with me? Xo, I guess that wouldn't 
do; your father would not want you 
to stay here that long.” 

“Ob, he’s busy with his accounts. 
I saw that before I came out,” she 
answered, and seemed unaware that, 
she had given away her pitiful little 
deception. “But go ahead, I ... I 
hardly ever smoke.” 

“Perhaps you prefer a meer- 
schaum pipe, like your father.” 

She laughed more than the poor 
witticism deserved. After that they 
talked aimlessly, both agreeing that 
the crop w : as coming in nicely, that 
the weather seemed a little cooler 
than last week, and that there was 
nothing like a little fresh air after 
supper. 

“Do you ever walk for exercise 
after supper?” she asked. 

He did not say that a long day 
in the swamps offered more than 
enough exercise, but agreed that he 
did . 

“So do I,” she blurted out. “Lots 
of times up near the water tower.” 
He looked at her. “Is that so? 
I’ll remember that.” The signal for 
roll call gave him a welcome excuse 



30 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



to got away; three more minutes, he 
thought, and I would have had to 
make a date with her. 

Wingate found himself called for 
swamp work the next day, the rush 
in the chopping sheds having abated. 
The crock lumbered and splashed its 
way around the long, meandering 
circuit, leaving one or more Earth- 
men at each supervision station. 
The car was down to four occupants, 
Wingate, Satchel, the pusher, and 
Jimm/e the crocker, when the pusher 
signaled for another stop. The flat, 
bright-eyed heads of amphibian na- 
tives broke water on three sides as 
soon as they were halted. 

“All right, Satchel,” ordered the 
pusher, “this is your billet. Over the 
side.” 

Satchel looked around. “Where’s 
my skiff?” The ranchers used small 
flat-bottomed duralumin skiffs in 
which to collect their day’s harvest. 
There was not one left in the crock. 

“You won’t need one. You’re go- 
in’ to clean this field for planting.” 

“That's 0. K. Still, I don’t see 
nobody around, and I don’t see no 
solid ground.” 

The skiff's had a double purpose; 
if a man were working out of con- 
tact with other Earthmen and at 
some distance from safe dry ground, 
the skiff became his lifeboat. If the 
crocodile which was supposed to col- 
lect him broke down, or if for any 
other reason he had need to sit down 
or lie down while on station, the skiff 
gave him a place to do so. The older 
clients told grim stories of men who 
had stood in eighteen inches of wa- 
ter for twenty-four, forty-eight, sev- 
enty-two hours, and then drowned 
horribly, out of their heads from 
sheer fatigue. 

“There’s dry ground right over 
there.” The pusher waved his hand 
in the general direction of a clump 



of trees which lay perhaps a quarter 
of a mile away. 

“Maybe so,” answered Satchel 
equably. “Let’s go see.” He 
glanced at Jimmie, who turned to 
the pusher for instructions. 

“Damnation! Don’t argue with 
me! Get over the side!” 

“Not,” said Satchel, “until I’ve 
seen something better than two feet 
of slime to squat on in a pinch.” 
The little water people had been 
following the argument with acute 
interest. They clucked and lisped in 
their own language; those who knew 
some pidgin English appeared to be 
giving newsy and undoubtedly dis- 
torted explanations of the events to 
their less sophisticated brethren. 
Fuming as he was, this seemed to 
add to the pusher’s anger. 

“For the last time — get out there!” 
“Well,” said Satchel, settling his 
gross frame more comfortably on the 
floorplates, “I’m glad we’ve finished 
with that subject.” 

Wingate was behind the pusher. 
This circumstance probably saved 
Satchel Hartley at least a scalp 
wound, for he caught the arm of the 
pusher as he struck. Hartley closed 
in at once; the three wrestled for a 
few seconds on the bottom of the 
craft. 

Hartley sat on the pusher’s chest 
while Wingate pried a blackjack 
away from the clenched fingers of 
the pusher’s right fist. 

“Glad you saw him reach for that. 
Hump,” Satchel acknowledged, “or 
I’d be needin’ an aspirin about now.” 
“Yeah, I guess so,” Wingate an- 
swered, and threw the weapon as far 
as he could out into the marshy 
waste. Several of the amphibians 
streaked after it and dived. “I 
guess you can let him up now.” 

The pusher said nothing to them 
as he brushed himself off, but he 
turned to the crocker, who had te- 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



81 



mained quietly in his saddle at the 
controls the whole time. “Why the 
hell didn’t you help me?” 

“I supposed you could take care 
of yourself, boss,” Jimmie answered 
noncommittally. 

Wingate and Hartley finished 
that work period as helpers to labor 
clients already stationed. The 
pusher had completely ignored them 
except for curt orders necessary to 
station them. But while they were 
washing up for supper back at the 
compound they received word to re- 
port to the big house. 

When they were ushered into the 
patron’s office they found the pusher 
already there with his employer, and 
wearing a self-satisfied smirk, while 
Van Huvsen’s expression was black 
indeed. 

“What’s this T hear about you 
two?” he burst out. “Refusing work. 
Jumping my foreman. By Joe, I’ll 
show you a thing or two!” 

“Just a moment. Patron van Huy- 
sen,” began Wingate quietly, sud- 
denly at home in the atmosphere of 
a trial court, “no one refused duty. 
Hartley simply protested doing dan- 
gerous work without reasonable safe- 
guards. As for the fracas, your fore- 
man attacked us; we acted simply 
in self-defense, and desisted as soon 
as we had disarmed him.” 

The pusher leaned over Van Huy- 
sen and whispered in his ear. The 
patron looked more angry than be- 
fore. “You did this with natives 
watching. Natives! You know co- 
lonial law! 1 could send you to the 
mines for this.” 

“No,” Wingate denied, “your fore- 
man did it in the presence of natives. 
Our role was passive and defensive 
throughout — ” 

“You call jumping my foreman 
peaceful? Now you listen to me: 
Your job here is to work. My fore- 



man’s job is to tell you where and 
how to work. He’s not such a 
dummy as to lose me my investment 
in a man. He judges what w ork is 
dangerous, not you.” The pusher 
whispered again to his chief. Van 
Huysen shook his head. The other 
persisted, but the patron cut him off 
with a gesture and turned back to 
the two labor clients. 

See here — I give every dog one 
bite, but not two. For you, no sup- 
per tonight and no rhira. Tomorrow 
we see how you behave.” 

“But Patron van Huys — ” 

“That’s all. Get to your quar- 
ters.” 

At lights out, Wingate found, on 
crawling into his bunk, that some- 
one had hidden therein a sandwich. 
He munched it gratefully in the dark 
and wondered who his friend could 
be. The food stayed the complaints 
of his stomach, but was not suffi- 
cient, in the absence of rhira, to per- 
mit him to go to sleep. He lay there, 
staring into the oppressive blackness 
of the bunkroom and listening to the 
assorted irritating noises that men 
can make while sleeping, and con- 
sidered his position. It had been 
bad enough, but barely tolerable be- 
fore; now, he was logically certain, 
it would be as near hell as a vindic- 
tive overseer could make it. He was 
prepared to believe, from what he 
had seen and the tales he had heard, 
that it would be very near indeed! 

He had been nursing his troubles 
for perhaps an hour when he felt a 
hand touch his side. “Hump! 
Hump!” came a whisper. “Come 
outside. Something’s up.” It was 
Jimmie. 

He felt his way cautiously through 
the stacks of bunks and slipped out 
the door after Jimmie. Satchel was 
already outside, and with him a 
fourth figure. 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



It was Annek van Huysen. He 
wondered how she had been able to 
get into the locked compound. Her 
eyes were puffy, as if she had been 
crying. 

Jimmie started to speak at once 
in cautious, low tones. “The kid 
tells us that I am scheduled to haul 
you two lugs back into Adonis to- 
morrow.” 

“What for?” 

“She doesn’t know. But she’s 
afraid it’s to sell you South. That 
doesn’t seem likely. The Old Man 
has never sold anyone South — but, 
then, nobody ever jumped his pusher 
before. I don’t know.” 

They wasted some minutes in 
fruitless discussion, then, after a be- 
mused silence, Wingate asked Jim- 
mie, “Do you know where they keep 
the keys to the crock?” 

“No. Why do y— ” 

“I could get them for you,” offered 
Annek eagerly. 

“You can’t drive a crock.” 

“I’ve watched you for some 
weeks.” 

“Well, suppose you can,” Jimmie 
continued to protest, “suppose you 
run for it in the crock. You’d be 
lost in ten miles. If you weren’t 
caught, you’d starve.” 

Wingate shrugged. “I’m not go- 
ing to be sold South.” 

“Nor am I,” Hartley added. 
“Wait a minute.” 

“Well, I don’t see any bet — ” 
“Wait a minute,” Jimmie reiter- 
ated snappishly, “can’t you see I’m 
trying to think?” 

The other three kept silent for sev- 
eral long moments. At last Jimmie 
said, “O. K. Kid, you’d better run 
along and let us talk. The less you 
know about this the better for you.” 
Annek looked hurt, but complied do- 
cilely to the extent of withdrawing 
out of earshot. The three men con- 
ferred for some minutes. At last 



Wingate motioned for her to rejoin 
them. 

“That’s all, Annek,” he told her. 
“Thanks a lot for everything you’ve 
done. We’ve figured a way out.” 
He stopped, and then said awk- 
wardly, “Well, good night.” 

She looked up at him. 

Wingate wondered what to do or 
say next. Finally he led her around 
the corner of the barracks and bade 
her good night again. He returned 
very quickly, looking shamefaced. 
They re-entered the barracks. 

Patron van Huysen also was 
having trouble getting to sleep. He 
hated having to discipline his peo- 
ple. By damn, why couldn’t they 
all be good boys and leave him in 
peace? Not but what there was pre- 
cious little peace for a rancher these 
days. It cost more to make a crop 
than the crop fetched in Adonis — at 
least it did after the interest was 
paid. 

He had turned his attention to his 
accounts after dinner that night to 
try to get the unpleasantness out of 
his mind, but he found it hard to 
concentrate on his figures. That 
man Wingate, now — he had bought 
him as much to keep him away from 
that slave driver Rigsbee as to get 
another hand. He had too much 
money invested in hands as it was 
in spite of his foreman always com- 
plaining about being short of labor. 
He would either have to sell some or 
ask the bank to refinance the mort- 
gage again. 

Hands weren’t worth their keep 
any more. You didn't get the kind 
of men on Venus that used to come 
when he was a boy. He bent over 
his books again. If the market went 
up even a little, the bank should be 
willing to discount his paper for a 
little more than last season. Maybe 
that would do it. 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



98 




He had been interrupted by a visit 
from his daughter. Annek he was 
always glad to see, but this time 
what she had to say, what she finally 
blurted out, had only served to make 
him angry. She, preoccupied with 
her own thoughts, could not know 
that she hurt her father's heart with 
a pain that was actually physical. 

But that had settled the matter 



in so far as Wingate was concerned. 
He would get rid of the trouble 
maker. Van Huysen ordered his 
daughter to bed with a roughness he 
had never before used on her. 

Of course, it was all his own fault, 
he told himself after he had gone to 
bed. A ranch on Venus was no place 
to raise a motherless girl. His An- 
nekchen was almost a woman grown 






34 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION 



now; how was she to find a husband 
here in these outlands? What would 
she do if he should die? She did not 
know it, but there would be nothing 
left — nothing, not even a ticket to 
Terra. But she would not become a 
labor client’s vrouw. No, not while 
there was a breath left in his old 
tired body. 

Well, Wingate would have to go, 
and the one they called Satchel, too. 
But he would not sell them South. 
No, he had never done that to one 
of his people. He thought with dis- 
taste of the great, factorylike planta- 
tions a few hundred miles farther 
from the pole, where the tempera- 
ture was always twenty to thirty de- 
grees higher than it was in his 
marshes, and mortality among labor 
clients was a standard item in cost 
accounting. No, he would take them 
in and trade them at the assignment 
station; what happened to them at 
auction there would be none of his 
business. But he would not sell 
them directly South. 

That gave him an idea; he did a 
little computing in his head and es- 
timated that he might be able to get 
enough credit on the two unexpired 
labor contracts to buy Annek a 
ticket to Earth. He was quite sure 
that his sister would take her in, 
reasonably sure, anyway, even 
though she had quarreled with him 
over marrying Annek ’s mother. He 
could send her a little money from 
time to time. And perhaps she 
could learn to be a secretary, or one 
of those other fine jobs a girl could 
get on Earth. 

But what would the ranch be like 
without Annekchen? 

He was so immersed in his own 
troubles that he did not hear his 
daughter slip out of her room and go 
outside. 



Wingate and Hartley tried to ap- 
pear surprised when they were left 
behind at muster for work. Jimmie 
was told to report to the big house; 
they saw him a few minutes later, 
backing the big Remington out of 
its shed. He picked them up, then 
trundled back to the big house and 
waited for the patron to appear. 
Van Huysen came out shortly and 
climbed into his cabin with neither 
word nor look for anyone. 

The crocodile started toward 
Adonis, lumbering a steady ten miles 
an hour. Wingate and Satchel con- 
versed in subdued voices, waited, 
and wondered. After an intermina- 
ble time the crock stopped. The 
cabin window flew open. 

“What’s the matter?" Van Huy- 
sen demanded. “Your engine acting 
u pr 

Jimmie grinned at him. “No, I 
stopped it." 

“For what?” 

“Better come up here and find 
out.” 

“By damn, I do!” The window 
slammed; presently Van Huysen re- 
appeared, warping his ponderous 
bulk around the side of the little 
cabin. “Now what’s this monkey- 
shines?” 

"Better get out and walk, patron. 
This is the end of the line.” 

Van Huysen seemed to have no 
remark suitable in answer, but his 
expression spoke for him. 

“No, I mean it," Jimmie went on. 
“Th is is the end of the line for you. 
I’ve stuck to solid ground the whole 
way so you could walk back. You’ll 
be able to follow the trail I broke; 
you ought to be able to make it in 
three or four hours, fat as you are.” 

The patron looked from Jimmie to 
the others. Wingate and Satchel 
closed in slightly, eyes unfriendly. 
“Better get goin’. Fatty,” Satchel 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



35 



said softly, “before you get chucked 
out headfirst.” 

Van Huysen pressed back against 
the rail of the crock, his hands grip- 
ping it. “I won’t get out of my own 
crock,” he said tightly. 

Satchel spat in the palm of one 
hand, then rubbed the two together. 
“O. K., Hump. He asked for it — ” 

“Just a second.” Wingate ad- 
dressed Van Huysen. “See here. 
Patron van Huysen — we don’t want 
to rough you up unless we have to. 
But there are three of us and we are 
determined. Better climb out qui- 
etly.” 

The older man’s face was dripping 
with sweat which was not entirely 
due to the muggy heat. His chest 
heaved, he seemed about to defy 
them. Then something went out in- 
side him. His figure sagged, the de- 
fiant lines in his face gave way to a 
whipped expression which was not 
good to see. 

A moment later he climbed qui- 
etly, listlessly, over the side into the 
ankle-deep mud and stood there, 
stooped, his legs slightly bent at the 
knees. 

When they were out of sight of 
the place where they had dropped 
their patron, Jimmie turned the 
crock off in a new direction. “Do 
you suppose he’ll make it?” asked 
Wingate. 

“Who?” asked Jimmie. “Van 
Huysen? Oh, sure, he’ll make it — 
probably.” He was very busy now 
with his driving; the crock crawled 
down a slope and lunged into naviga- 
ble water. In a few minutes the 
marsh grass gave way to open wa- 
ter; Wingate saw that they were in 
a broad lake whose farther shores 
were lost in the mist. Jimmie set a 
compass course. 

The far shore was no more than a 
strand; it concealed an overgrown 
ASf— 3 



bayou. Jimmie followed it a short 
distance, stopped the crock, and 
said, “This must be just about the 
place,” in an uncertain voice. He 
dug under the tarpaulin folded up 
in one corner of the empty hold and 
drew out a broad flat paddle. He 
took this to the rail and, leaning out, 
he smacked the water loudly with 
the blade: Slap — slap, slap — slap! 

He waited. 

The flat head of an amphibian 
broke water near the side; it stud- 
ied Jimmie with bright, merry eyes. 
“Hello,” said Jimmie. 

It answered in its own language. 
Jimmie replied in the same tongue, 
stretching his mouth to reproduce 
the uncouth clucking syllables. The 
native listened, then slid underwater 
again. 

He — or, more probably, she — was 
back in a few minutes, another with 
her. “Thigarek?” the newcomer said 
hopefully. 

“Thigarek when we get there, old 
girl,” Jimmie temporized. “Here — 
climb aboard.” He held out a hand, 
which the native accepted and wrig- 
gled gracefully inboard. It perched 
its unhuman, yet oddly pleasing, lit- 
tle figure on the rail near the driver’s 
seat. Jimmie got the car under way. 

How long they were guided by 
their little pilot, Wingate did not 
know, as the timepiece on the con- 
trol panel was out of order, but his 
stomach informed him that it was 
too long. He rummaged through the 
cabin and dug out an iron ration 
which he shared with Satchel and 
Jimmie. He offered some to the na- 
tive, but she smelled it and drew her 
head away. 

Shortly after that there was a 
sharp hissing noise and a column of 
steam rose up ten yards ahead of 
them. Jimmie halted the crock at 
once. “Cease firing!” he called out. 
“It’s just us chickens.” 



86 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Who are you?” came a disembod- 
ied voice. 

“Fellow travelers.” 

“Climb out where we can see 
vou .” 

“O. K.” 

The native poked Jimmie in the 
ribs. “Thigarek,” she stated posi- 
tively. 

“Huh? Oh, sure.” He parceled 
out trade tobacco until she acknowl- 
edged the total, then added one more 
package for good will. She with- 
drew a piece of string from her left 
cheek pouch, tied up her pay, and 
slid over the side. They saw her 
swimming away, her prize carried 
high out of the water. 

“Hurry up and show yourself!” 

“Coming!” They climbed out 
into waist-deep water and advanced, 
holding their hands overhead. A 
squad of four broke cover and 
looked them over, their weapons 
lowered but ready. The leader 
searched their harness pouches and 
sent one of bis men on to look over 
the crocodile. 

“You keep a close watch,” re- 
marked Wingate. 

The leader glanced at him. “Yes,” 
he said, “and no. The little people 
told us you were coming. They’re 
worth all the watchdogs that were 
ever littered.’’ 

They got under way again with 
one of the scouting party driving. 
Their captors were not unfriendly, 
but not disposed to talk. “Wait till 
you see the governor,” they said. 

Their destination turned out to be 
a wide stretch of moderately high 
ground. Wingate was amazed at the 
number of buildings and the numer- 
ous population. “How in the world 
can they keep a place this big se- 
cret?” he asked Jimmie. 

“If the State of Texas were cov- 
ered with fog and had only the popu- 
lation of Waukegan, Illinois, you 



could hide quite a lot of things.” 

“But wouldn't it show on a map?” 

“How well mapped do you think 
Venus is? Don’t be a dope.” 

On the basis of the few words he 
had had with Jimmie beforehand, 
Wingate had expected no more than 
a camp where fugitive clients lurked 
in the bush while squeezing a pre- 
carious living from the country. 
What he found was a culture and a 
government. True, it was a rough 
frontier culture and a simple govern- 
ment with few laws and an unwrit- 
ten constitution, but a framework of 
customs was in actual operation, and 
its gross offenders were punished — 
with no higher degree of injustice 
than one finds anywhere. 

It surprised Humphrey Wingate 
that fugitive slaves, the scum of 
Earth, were able to develop an in- 
tegrated society. It had surprised 
his ancestors that the transported 
criminals of Botany Bay should de- 
velop a high civilization in Australia. 
Not that Wingate found the phe- 
nomen of Botany Bay surprising — 
that was history, and history is 
never surprising — after it happens. 

The success of the colony was 
more credible to Wingate when he 
came to know more of the character 
of the governor, who was also gener- 
alissimo and administrator of the 
low and middle justice. High jus- 
tice was voted on by the whole com- 
munity, a procedure that Wingate 
considered outrageously sloppy, but 
which seemed to satisfy the com- 
munity. As magistrate, the gover- 
nor handed out decisions with a 
casual contempt for rules of evidence 
and legal theory that reminded Win- 
gate of stories he had heard of the 
apocryphal Old Judge Bean, “The 
Law West of Pecos,” but again the 
people seemed to like it. 

The great shortage of women in 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



87 



the community — men outnumbered 
them three to one— caused incidents 
which more than anything else re- 
quired the decisions of the governor. 
Here, Wingate was forced to admit, 
was a situation in which traditional 
custom would have been nothing but 
a source of trouble; he admired the 
shrewd common sense and under- 
standing of human nature with 
which the governor sorted out con- 
flicting strong human passions and 
suggested modus operandi for get- 
ting along together. A man who 
could maintain a working degree of 
peace in such matters did not need 
a legal education. 

The governor held office by elec- 
tion and was advised by an elected 
council. It w T as Wingate’s private 
opinion that the governor w T ould 
have risen to the top in any society. 
The man had boundless energy, 
great gusto for living, a ready, thun- 
derous laugh — and the courage and 
capacity for making decisions. He 
was a “natural.” 

The three runaways were given 
a couple of weeks in which to get 
their bearings and find some job in 
which they could make themselves 
useful and self-supporting. Jimmie 
stayed with his crock, now confis- 
cated for the community, but which 
still required a driver. There were 
other crockers available who proba- 
bly would have liked the job, but 
there was tacit consent that the man 
who brought it in should drive it if 
he wished. Satchel found a billet in 
the fields, doing much the same work 
he had done for Van Huysen. He 
told Wingate that he was actually 
having to work harder; nevertheless 
he liked it better because the condi- 
tions were, as he put it, “looser.” 

Wingate detested the idea of going 
back to agricultural work. He had 
no rational excuse; it was simply 



that he hated it. His radio experi- 
ence at last stood him in good stead. 
The community had a jary-rigged, 
low-powder radio on which a constant 
listening watch was kept, but which 
was rarely used for transmission be- 
cause of the danger of detection. 
Earlier runaway slave camps had 
been wiped out by the company po- 
lice through careless use of radio. 
Nowadays they hardly dared use it, 
except in extreme emergency. 

But they needed radio. The 
grapevine telegraph maintained 
through the somewhat slap-happy 
help of the little people enabled them 
to keep some contact with the other 
fugitive communities with which 
they were loosely confederated, but 
it was not really fast, and anything 
but the simplest of messages were 
distorted out of recognition. 

Wingate was assigned to the com- 
munity radio when it was discoverer! 
that he had appropriate technical 
knowledge. The previous operator 
had been lost in the bush. His oppo- 
site number was a pleasant old 
codger known as Doc, who could lis- 
ten for signals but who knew noth- 
ing of upkeep and repair. 

Wingate threw himself into the 
job of overhauling the antiquated 
installation. The problems presented 
by lack of equipment, the necessity 
for “making do,” gave him a degree 
of happiness he had not known since 
he was a boy, but he was not aware 
of it. 

He was intrigued by the problem 
of safety in radio communication. 
An idea, derived from some account 
of the pioneer days in radio, gave 
him a lead. His installation, like all 
others, communicated by frequency 
modulation. Somewhere he had 
seen a diagram for a totally obso- 
lete type of transmitter, an ampli- 
tude modulator. He did not have 
much to go on, but he worked out a 



38 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



circuit which he believed would os- 
cillate in that fashion and which 
could he hooked up from the gear at 
hand. 

He asked the governor for permis- 
sion to attempt to build it. “Why 
not? Why not?” the governor 
roared at him. “I haven't the slight- 
est idea what you are talking about, 
son, but if you think you can build 
a radio that the company can’t de- 
tect, go right ahead. You don’t 
have to ask me; it’s your pidgin.” 

“I'll have to put the station out 
of commission for sending.” 

“Why not?” 

The problem had more knots in 
it than he had thought. But he la- 
bored at it with the clumsy but will- 
ing assistance of Doc. His first 
hookup failed; his forty-third at- 
tempt five weeks later worked. Doc, 
stationed some miles out in the bush, 
reported himself able to hear the 
broadcast via a small receiver con- 
structed for the purpose, whereas 
Wingate picked up nothing whatso- 
ever on the conventional receiver lo- 
cated in the same room with the ex- 
perimental transmitter. 

In the meantime he worked on his 
book. 

Wliy he was writing a book he 
could not have told you. Back on 
Earth it could have been termed a 
political pamphlet against the colo- 
nial system. Here there was no one 
to convince of his thesis, nor had he 
any expectation of ever being able 
to present it to a reading public. 
Venus was his home. He knew that 
there was no chance for him ever to 
return; the only way lay through 
Adonis, and there, waiting for him, 
were warrants for half the crimes in 
the calendar — contract jumping, 
theft, kidnaping, criminal abandon- 
ment, conspiracy, subverting gov- 
ernment. If the company police ever 



laid hands on him they would jail 
him and lose the key. 

No, the book arose, not from any 
expectation of publication, but from 
a half-subconscious need to arrange 
his thoughts, tie had suffered a 
complete upsetting of all the evalua- 
tions by which he had lived; for his 
mental health it was necessary that 
he formulate new ones. It was natu- 
ral to his orderly, if somewhat un- 
imaginative, mind that he set his 
reasons and conclusions forth in 
w r riting. 

Somewhat diffidently, he offered 
the manuscript to Doc. He had 
learned that the nickname title had 
derived from the man’s former occu- 
pation on Earth; he had been a pro- 
fessor of economics and philosophy 
in one of the smaller universities. 
Doc had even offered a partial ex- 
planation of his presence on Venus. 
“A little matter involving one of my 
women students,” he confided. “My 
wife took an unsympathetic view of 
the matter, and so did the board of 
regents. The board had long consid- 
ered my opinions a little too radi- 
cal.” 

“Were they?” 

“Heavens, no! I was a rock- 
bound conservative. But I had an 
unfortunate tendency to express con- 
servative principles in realistic 
rather than allegorical language.” 

“I suppose you're a radical now.” 

Doc’s eyebrows lifted slightly. 
“Not at all". Radical and conserva- 
tive are terms for emotional atti- 
tudes, not sociological opinions.” 

Doc accepted the manuscript, read 
it through and returned it without 
comment. But Wingate pressed him 
for an opinion. “Well, my boy, if 
you insist — ” 

“Ido.” 

“ — I would say that you have 
fallen into the commonest fallacy of 



LOGIC OF EMPIBE 



30 



all in dealing with social and eco- 
nomic subjects — the devil theory.” 

“Huh?” 

“You have attributed conditions 
to villainy that simply result from 
stupidity. Colonial slavery is noth- 
ing new; it is the invariable result of 
imperial expansion, the automatic 
result of an antiquated financial 
structure — ” 

“I pointed out the part the banks 
played in my book.” 

“No, no, no! You think bankers 
are scoundrels. They are not; nor 
are company officials, nor patrons, 
nor the governing classes back on 
Earth. Men are constrained by ne- 
cessity, and then build up rationali- 
zations to account for their acts. It 
is not even cupidity. Slavery is eco- 
nomically unsound, nonproductive, 
but men drift into it whenever the 
circumstances compel it. A differ- 
ent financial system — But that’s 
another story.” 

“I still think it’s rooted in human 
cussedness,” Wingate said stub- 
bornly. 

“Not cussedness — simple stu- 

pidity. I can’t prove it to you, but 
you will learn.” 

The success of the “silent radio” 
caused the governor to send Wingate 
on a long swing around the other 
camps of the free federation to help 
them rig new equipment and to 
teach them how to use it. He spent 
four hard-working and soul-satisfy- 
ing weeks, and finished with* the 
warm knowledge that he had done 
more to consolidate the position of 
the free men against their enemies 
than could be done by winning a 
pitched battle. 

When he returned to his home 
community he found Sam Houston 
Jones waiting there. 

Winoate broke into a run. 
“Sam!” he shouted. “Sam! Sam!” 



He grabbed his hand, pounded him 
on the back and yelled at him the 
affectionate insults that sentimental 
men use in attempting to cover up 
their weakness. “Sam, you old 
scoundrel! When did you get here? 
How did you escape? And how the 
devil did you manage to come all 
the way from South Pole? Were 
you transferred before you escaped?” 
“Howdy, Hump,” said Sam. 
“Now one at a time, and not so 
fast.” 

But Wingate bubbled on. “My, 
but. it’s good to see. your ugly face, 
fellow. And am I glad you came 
here — this is a great place. We’ve 
got the most up and coming little 
State in the whole federation. You’ll 
like it. They’re a great bunch — ” 
“What are you?” Jones asked, ey- 
ing him. "President of the local 
chamber of commerce?” 

Wingate looked at him and then 
laughed. “I get it. But seriously, 
you will like it. Of course, it’s a lot 
different from what you were used 
to back on Earth — but that’s all past 
and done with. No use crying over 
spilled milk, eh?” 

“Wait a minute. You are under 
a misapprehension. Hump. Listen. 
I’m not an escaped slave. I’m here- 
to take, you back.” 

Wingate opened his mouth, closed 
jt, then opened it again. “But, 
Sam,” he said, “that’s impossible. 
You don’t know.” 

“I think I do.” 

“But you don’t. There’s no going 
back for me. If I did, I’d have to 
face trial, and they’ve got me dead 
to rights. Even if 1 threw myself 
on the mercy of the court and man- 
aged to gel off with a light sentence, 
it would be twenty years before I’d 
be 'a free man. No, Sam, it’s impos- 
sible. You don’t know the things 
I’m charged with.” 

"1 don’t, eh? It’s cost me a nice 



40 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



piece of change lo clear them up.” 
“Huh?” 

“I know how you escaped. I know 
you stole a crock and kidnaped your 
patron and got two other clients to 
run with you. It took my best blar- 
ney and plenty of folding money to 
fix it. So help me, Hump — why 
didn’t you pull something mild, like 
murder, or robbing a post office?” 
“Well, gee, Sam — I didn’t do any 
of those things to cause you trouble. 
I had counted you out of my cal- 
culations. I was on my own. I’m 
sorry about the money.” 

“Forget it. Money isn’t an item 
with me. I’m filthy with the stuff. 
You know that. It comes from ex- 
ercising care in the choice of parents. 
I was just pulling vour leg and it 
came off in my hand.” 

“0. K. Sorry.” Wingate’s grin 
was a little forced. Nobody likes 
charity. “But tell me what hap- 
pened. I’m still in the dark.” 
“Right.” Jones had been as much 
surprised and distressed at being 
separated from Wingate on ground- 
ing as Wingate had been. But there 
had been nothing for him to do 
about it until he received assistance 
from Earth. He had spent long 
weeks as a metal worker at South 
Pole, waiting and wondering why his 
sister did not answer his call for help. 
He had written letters to her to sup- 
plement his first radiogram, that be- 
ing the only type of communication 
he could afford, but the days crept 
past with no answer. 

When a message did arrive from 
her the mystery was cleared up. She 
had not received his radio to Earth 
promptly because she was aboard 
the Evening Star — in the first-class 
cabin, traveling, as was her custom, 
in a stateroom listed under * her 
maid’s name. “It was the family 
habit of avoiding publicity that sty- 
mied us,” Jones explained. “If I 



hadn’t sent the radio to her rather 
than to the family lawyers, or if she 
had been known by name tor the 
purser, we would have gotten to- 
gether the first day.” 

The message had not been relayed 
to her on Venus because the bright 
planet had by that time crawled to 
superior opposition on the far side 
of the Sun from the Earth. For a 
matter of sixty Earth days there was 
no communication, Earth to Venus. 
The message had rested, recorded 
but still scrambled, in the hands of 
the family firm, until she could be 
reached. 

When she received it she started a 
small tornado. Jones had been re- 
leased, the liens against his contract 
paid, and ample credit posted to his 
name on Venus in less than twenty- 
four hours. “So that was that,” con- 
cluded Jones, “except that I’ve got 
to explain to big sister when I get 
home just how I got into this mess. 
She'll burn ray ears.” 

Jones had chartered a rocket for 
North Pole and had gotten on Win- 
gate’s trail at once. “If you had 
held on one more day, I would have 
picked you up. AVe retrieved your 
ex-patron about a mile from his 
gates.” 

“So the old villain made it. I’m 
glad of that.” 

“And a good job, too. If he 
hadn’t, I might never have been 
able to square you. He was pretty 
well done in, and his heart was 
kicking up plenty. Do you know 
that abandonment is a capital of- 
fense on this planet — with a manda- 
tory death sentence if the victim 
dies?” 

\\ 7 ingate nodded. “Yeah, T know. 
Not that I ever heard of a patron 
being gassed for it if the corpse was 
a client. But that’s beside the point. 
Go ahead.” 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



41 



“Well, he was plenty sore. I 
don’t blame him, though I don’t 
blame you, either. Nobody wants to 
be sold South, and T gather that was 
what you expected. Well, I paid 
him for his crock, and I paid him for 
your contract — take a look at me, 
I’m your new owner!— and I paid 
for the contracts of your two friends 
as well. Still he wasn’t satisfied. I 
finally had to throw in a first-class 
passage for his daughter back to 
Earth and promise to find her a job. 
She’s a big dumb ox, but I guess the 
family can stand another retainer. 
Anyhow, old son, you’re a free man. 
The only remaining question is 
whether or not the governor will let 
us leave here. It seems it’s not 
done.” 

“No, that’s a point. Which re- 
minds me — -how did you locate the 
place?” 

“A spot of detective work too long 
to go into now. That’s what took 
me so long. Slaves don’t like to 
talk. Anyhow, we’ve a date to talk 
to the governor tomorrow.” 

Wingate took a long time to get 
to sleep. After his first burst of ju- 
bilation he began to wonder. Did he 
want to go back? To return to the 
law, to citing technicalities in the in- 
terest of whichever side employed 
him, to meaningless social engage- 
ments, to the empty, sterile, 
bunkum-fed fife of the fat and pros- 
perous class he had moved among 
and served — did he want that; he, 
who had fought and worked with 
men? It seemed to him that his 
anachronistic little “invention” in 
radio had been of more worth than 
all he had ever done on Earth. 

Then he recalled his book. 

Perhaps he could get it published. 
Perhaps he could expose this dis- 
graceful, inhuman system which sold 



men into legal slavery. He was 
bright wide awake now. There was 
a thing to do! That was his job — 
to go back to Earth and plead the 
cause of the colonists. Maybe there 
was destiny that shapes men’s lives, 
after all. He was just the man to 
do it, the right social background, 
the proper training. He could make 
himself heard. 

He fell asleep and dreamed of 
cool, dry breezes, of clear blue sky. 
Of moonlight — 

Satchel and Jimmie decided to 
stay, even though Jones had been 
able to fix it up with the governor. 
“It’s like this,” said Satchel. 
“There’s nothing for us back on 
Earth or we wouldn’t have shipped 
in the first place. And you can’t un- 
dertake to support a couple of dead- 
heads. And this isn’t such a bad 
place. It’s going to be something 
some day. We’ll stay and grow up 
with it.” 

They handled the crock which car- 
ried Jones and Wingate to Adonis. 
There was no hazard in it, as Jones 
was now officially their patron. 
What the authorities did not know 
they could not act on. The crock 
returned to the refugee community 
loaded with a cargo which Jones in- 
sisted on calling their ransom. As a 
matter of fact, the opportunity to 
send an agent to obtain badly needed 
supplies — one who could do so safely 
and without arousing the suspicions 
of the company authorities — had 
been the determining factor in the 
governor’s unprecedented decision to 
risk compromising the secrets of his 
constituency. He had been frankly 
not interested in Wingate’s plans to 
agitate for the abolishment of the 
slave trade. 

Saying good-by to Satchel and 
Jimmie, Wingate found embarrass- 
ing and unexpectedly depressing. 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



42 



For the first two weeks after 
grounding on Earth, both Wingate 
and Jones were too busy to see much 
of each other. Wingate had gotten 
his manuscript in shape on the re- 
turn trip and spent the time getting 
acquainted with the waiting rooms 
of publishers. Only one had shown 
any interest beyond a form letter of 
rejection. 

“I’m sorry, old man,” that one had 
told him. “I’d like to publish your 
book, in spite of its controversial na- 
ture, if it stood any chance at all of 
success. But it doesn’t. Frankly, 
it has no literary merit whatsoever. 
I would as leave read a brief.” 

“I think l understand,” Wingate 
answered sullenly. “A big publish- 
ing house can’t afford to print any- 
thing which might offend the powers 
that be.” 

The publisher took his cigar from 
his mouth and looked at the younger 
man before replying. “I suppose I 
should resent that,” he said quietly, 
“but I won't. That’s a popular mis- 
conception. The powers that be, as 
you call them, do not resort to sup- 
pression in this country. We pub- 
lish what the public will buy. We’re 
in business for that purpose. 

“I was about to suggest, if you 
will listen, a means of making your 
book salable. You need a collabo- 
rator, somebody that knows the 
writing game and can put some guts 
m it. 

Jones called the day that Wingate 
got his revised manuscript back 
from his ghost writer. “Listen to 
this, Sam,” he pleaded. “Look what 
the dirty so-and-so has done to my 
book. Look. ‘I heard again the 
crack of the overseer’s whip. The 
frail body of my mate shook under 
the lash. He gave one cough and 
slid slowly under the waist-deep wa- 
ter, dragged down by his chains.’ 
Honest, Sam, did you ever see such 



drivel? And look at the new title: 
‘I Was a Slave on Venus.’ It sounds 
like a confession magazine.” 

Jones nodded without replying. 

“And listen to this,” Wingate went 
on, “ ‘ — crowded like cattle in the in- 
closure, their naked bodies gleaming 
with sweat, the women slaves shrank 
from the — ’ Oh, hell, 1 can’t go on!” 

“Well, they did wear nothing but 
harnesses.” 

“Yes, yes — but that has nothing 
to do with the case. Venus costume 
is a necessary concomitant of the 
weather. There’s no excuse to leer 
about it. He’s turned my book into 
a ruddy sex show. And he had the 
nerve to defend his actions. He 
claimed that social pamphleteering 
is dependent on extravagant lan- 
guage.” 

“Well, maybe lie’s got something. 
‘Gulliver’s Travels’ certainly has 
some racy passages, and the whip- 
ping scenes in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ 
aren’t anything to hand to a kid to 
read. Not to mention ‘Grapes of 
Wrath.’ ” 

“Well, I’m damned if I’ll resort to 
that kind of cheap sensationalism. 
I’ve got a perfectly straightforward 
case that anyone can understand.” 

“Have you, now?” Jones took his 
pipe out of his mouth. “I’ve been 
wondering how long it would take 
you to get your eyes opened. What 
is your case? It’s nothing new; it 
happened in the Old South, it hap- 
pened again in California, in Mexico, 
in Australia, in South Africa. Why? 
Because in any expanding free-enter- 
prise economy which does not have 
a money system designed to fit its 
requirements the use of mother- 
country capital to develop the 
colony inevitably results in subsist- 
ence-level wages at home and slave 
labor in the colonies. And all the 
good will in the world won’t change 



LOGIC OF EMPIRE 



4S 



it, because the basic problem is one 
requiring scientific analysis and a 
mathematical mind — two things 

people don’t want applied to them- 
selves. Do you think you can ex- 
plain those issues to the general pub- 
lic?” 

“I can try.” 

“How far did I get when I tried 
to explain them to you — before you 
had seen the results? And you are a 
smart hombre. No, Hump, these 
things are too difficult to explain to 
people and too abstract to interest 
them. You spoke before a women’s 
club the other day, didn’t you?” 

“Yes.” 

“How did you make out?” 

“Well — the chairwoman called me 
up beforehand and asked me to hold 
my talk down to ten minutes, as 
their national president was to be 
there and they would be crowded for 
time.” 

“Hm-m-m. You see where your 
great social message rates in compe- 
tition. But never mind. Ten min- 
utes is long enough to explain the 
issue to a person if he has the 



capacity to understand it. Did you 
sell anybody?” 

“Well — I’m not sure.” 

“You’re darn tootin’ you’re not 
sure. Maybe they clapped for you, 
but how many of them came up aft- 
erward and wanted to sign checks? 
No, Hump, sweet reasonableness 
won’t get you anywhere in this 
racket. To make yourself heard you 
have to be a demagogue, or a rab- 
ble-rousing political preacher like 
this fellow Nehemiah Scudder. 
We’re going merrily to hell, and it 
won't stop until it winds up in a 
crash.” 

“But — Oh, the devil! What can 
we do about it?” 

“Nothing. Things are bound to 
get a whole lot worse before they can 
get any better.* Let’s have a drink.” 

* Astounding readers may or may not have 
noticed, all of Robert Heinlein's stories are 
based on a common proposed future history of 
the world, with emphasis on the history of 
America. “Logic of Empire’’ follows, in this 
future history, the time of “Hoads Must Roll” 
and “Blow-ups Happen,” and precedes the time 
of “If This Goes On — ” and “Coventry.” In 
••If This Coes On the original prophet was 
referred to frequently -the man who set up the 
hard, harsh theocratic dictatorship that ruled 
the America of the time of “If This Goes On — 
He ft as Nehemiah Scudder. — Ed. 



THE E NO. 



*★★*★★★★★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★ 

"GRAY LENSMAN" 

The four issues of Astounding containing Dr. E. E. Smith's "Gray 
Lensman." are still available. The October. November, and December, 
1939, and the January. 1940, issues of Astounding Science-Fiction may be 
purchased at 30 c a copy from 

Subscription Department 
STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS 
79 Seventh Avenue, New York City 



★ ★ * ★ ************************** 



u 



BLOCKADE IIM 

By Malcolm Jameson 

A good technician can make unlikely things turn into highly effective 
weapons, and weapons don't always have to kill to be effective! 

Illustrated by Schneeman 



“Thar she blows!” 

While the alarm jangled, Red 
Leary, the quartermaster, cocked an 
eye at the pulsating ruby pick-up 
light, noted the bearing, and then 
laid a hand on the jet-feed cut-off 
valve. He looked expectantly at the 
skipper. 

“Hold it,” cautioned the latter, 
“until they challenge. Sparks! Is 
your board manned?” 

“Aye, sir.” 

“Rebel cruiser coming up on the 
port quarter. He’ll be calling in a 
minute. Don’t chance talking to 
him — stick to code. I’m just a little 
afraid of your dialect. One slip and 
we’re done.” 

The call came almost instantly, 
strident and insistent. First it was 
QF, QF, QF, and on the heels of that 
came the peremptory BWB — “What 
ship?” “Heave to to receive board- 
ing party.” 

“ ’Vast blasting,” ordered Kemp. 
“Tell ’em O. K., Sparks.” 

Red’s hand moved. The Cloud 
Queen trembled, then lurched back- 
ward as she dropped her accelera- 
tion. The three men looked at one 
another. Here it was; in another 
half-hour, at most, they would know. 
Their elaborate masquerade was 
about to be tested. They would 
know the answers to a lot of ques- 
tions. Whether they would meet the 
unknown fate of the fourteen ships 
that had preceded them; whether the 



Martian- Jovian blockade was really 
unbreakable; whether they were to 
live or die; whether, indeed, there 
was a chance left for the Earth Em- 
pire to live or die. Red swallowed 
hard, while Sparks moistened his lips 
with a nervous tongue. Kemp, the 
skipper, was surveying the room 
critically, on the alert for any item, 
hitherto overlooked, that might 
arouse suspicion. Seeing nothing, he 
relaxed. The stage was set — from 
now on it must be acting. 

No one who had formerly known 
Jack Kemp, resourceful and trim 
young lieutenant of the Tellurian 
Space Force, would have l'ecognized 
him as he appeared at that moment. 
His face was all but covered by a 
newly grown, fierce black beard that 
had been artfully threaded with gray 
by the experts of the chromosurgery 
section of Intelligence. It ’matched 
the equally artificial grayness of his 
temples. The deep tan of the ray- 
burned spaceman was not synthetic, 
but somehow seemed to . be set off 
and augmented by the threadbare 
old uniform trimmed in tattered, 
greenish-gold lace. In every inch he 
looked to be what he w as pretending 
to be — the somewhat bedraggled 
skipper of a second-rater out of 
Venus. The crew as well, likewise 
ratings of the Space Force, were simi- 
larly disguised. 

As for the ship, no one familiar 
with the well-found ships of the Cos- 



45 




Leary played their trump; the trigglemouse im- 
mediately nipped and bit hard on the boarding officer s leg. 




48 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



mos Line would ever guess that this 
dingy vessel was in reality the Violet, 
well known before the war along the 
Saturnian run. Her metamorphosis 
had been as thorough as that of the 
men in her, thanks to the creative 
imaginations and the accurate 
memories of a dozen operatives at 
Lunar headquarters. 

No detail of hull, equipment or 
cargo had been overlooked. The 
framed register screwed to the bulk- 
head in the cabin was puckered and 
stained with ugly brown water 
marks, as if a negligent quartermas- 
ter had left the lock doors open while 
cradled in the steamy atmosphere of 
her home port. The crew’s quarters 
were decorated with intimate snap- 
shots of alluring females taken 
against the fantastic background of 
Venusian scenery. Every man on 
board was not only provided with 
forged licenses and passports, but 
with persona] correspondence writ- 
ten in many hands on the damp- 
proof paper of Venus and bearing 
appropriate stamps and cancella- 
tions. Outside, clinging to every ir- 
regularity in the hull, were patches 
of the hardy Venusian moss that 
thrives even in the void, planted 
there by a crafty technician from 
London’s great interplanetary bo- 
tanical garden. And, of course, 
bolted to the hull just over the ship’s 
nose was the inevitable hemi-cylin- 
der housing the infrared headlight by 
which the master could find his way 
through the misty ceiling down to 
the landing field of Aphrodite’s 
Haven. If anywhere among all that 
artistry there w'as a single flaw, it 
was not from want of foresight or 
trying. 

A slight shudder marked the 
coming alongside of the cruiser’s 
boat. Kemp pushed the switch that 
turned on the lights in the lock and 



loosed the guard on the outer door. 
Then he reached up and plucked 
from its brackets a Mark IX Heim- 
Iitz blaster — the sporting model. 
Sticking that into his holster, he 
walked along the passage to greet his 
adversary. 

He knew from the clang of the 
outer door and the hissing of air that 
the boarders were already in the lock. 
In a moment the door burst open and 
a scowling officer stepped out, fol- 
lowed closely by two bluejackets 
with drawn ray guns of the latest 
heavy-duty model. Kemp knew at 
a glance they were Callistans from 
the silver lozenges embroidered on 
their uniforms. Only a Callistan 
would wear such a device. In the 
beginning, when Callisto was a Tel- 
lurian penal colony, lozenges were 
woven into the cloth of their gar- 
ments as the stigmata of criminality. 
Yet so shameless is that race that 
upon gaining their independence ten 
years ago, they adopted the lozenge 
as their national insignia and there- 
after flaunted them openly through- 
out the system. 

'‘Jig’s up,” said the Callistan 
briefly as he stepped into the ship. 
Without ceremony, he snatched the 
blaster from Kemp’s belt and handed 
it to one of his men. “Save the act 
until later,” he added contemptu- 
ously as Kemp jumped backward, 
registering indignant astonishment. 
Then he turned on his heel and 
strode toward the control room. 
Kemp followed, silent and perturbed. 
The boarding officer was not going 
to be an easy man to deal with. 

“Swell job of camouflage,” com- 
mented the Callistan after a quick 
inspection of the control room. “If 
they had faked your first ships like 
this, you might have got by with one 
of them.” He studied Kemp inso- 
lently, and then, “O. K., buddy. Go 
into your song and dance now — I’m 



BLOCKADE RUNNER 



47 



listening. It’s been dull out here, 
waiting for you, and we need a laugh. 
And I hope you’ve thought up a new 
one. The gag about being an inno- 
cent Venusian merchantman just 
trying to get along in the Universe 
has been worked to a frazzle. But 
shoot, anyway. Only make it short 
and snappy, because I already know 
the answer.” 

Kemp shrugged his shoulders and 
spread his hands in a gesture of hope- 
lessness. So far the Callistan was 
bluffing, and Kemp knew it. 

“What else can I tell you? But 
look us over — our papers — our holds 
— everything, if you doubt us.” 

“Doubt you?” roared the big Cal- 
listan with a hearty laugh. “Why, 
Mr. Tellurian Space Force What- 
ever-your-rank-is, T haven’t any 
doubt about you. There’s a couple 
of things I don’t know about you — 
like what your real name is — but out 
at the mines that won’t matter. 
They’ll give you a number, anyway.” 

He started his search methodi- 
cally, missing nothing, however tri- 
fling. He thumbed through the log, 
squinted at the makers’ nameplates 
on each bit of astragational gear, 
scratched the mold-resisting paint to 
see what was under it, and sniffed the 
air appraisingly. Thanks to the still- 
hanging fumes of huil-huil, it had a 
thorough-going Venusian aroma. He 
glanced at the big jar of crushed, 
dried huil-huil leaves sitting on the 
radioman’s desk. Not more than a 
handful of the weed so prized by 
space-going Venusians was gone from 
the jar — no more than half a dozen 
men could smoke in the day or so 
since the Cloud Queen, as she 
claimed, had escaped internment at 
Luna Base. 

The flat, brutal face lit up with 
that I-told-you-so joy, and he 
pointed triumphantly at the nearly 
full jar. 



“An empty one might have fooled 
me,” he fairly shouted, “but now I’ve 
seen all I want to see. You guys al- 
ways overdo your stuff. Look, stu- 
pid — you been interned on Luna, 
where you can’t get that weed — a 
year, you say — locked up all the 
time in your ship. And then, two 
days ago, you hop off all hunky-dory 
with a nice full jar. I ask you. How 
does that add up?” 

Kemp smiled patiently, letting his 
meticulously yellowed teeth show 
through his beard. 

“My friend, you are too. too sus- 
picious. We have tons of it. In the 
hold you will find ten thousand 
pounds. Look in the manifest; it is 
part of our cargo — bound for your 
country, for Ganymede. It is true 
we have swiped a few hundred 
pounds for our own use, a matter we 
will have to settle for with the con- 
signee, but our laws permit us to 
make use of cargo in an emergency. 
And being captured by those ac- 
cursed Earthmen is an emergency.” 

The Caelistan looked a little du- 
bious, but he accepted the manifest 
and the invoices. He looked through 
them and then went on a tour of the 
ship. For an hour he prowled 
through the cargo spaces, but no- 
where could he find any irregularity. 
They were filled with products of 
Venus, all articles of common com- 
merce with the Jovian satellites. Nor 
could he find any indication of con- 
cealed armaments. The ship was 
plainly no Q-boat, as a quick look at 
the engine room proved. There was 
only the usual auxiliary generating 
equipment. The ship could not pos- 
sibly be made into a commerce 
raider. 

Back in the control room, the 
boarding officer dropped his taunt- 
ing, bullying air and listened more 
politely to Kemp’s story, although it 



48 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



was clear he was reluctant to release 
the vessel and permit her to complete 
her voyage. 

Kemp kept on talking, telling of 
his hard luck at being picked up dur- 
ing the very first week of the war, 
and of the hardships of internment, 
of the pitiful inadequacy of the Tel- 
lurian fleet and the incapacity of its 
officers, and of the general state of 
despair prevailing on the Moon. He 
also made much of the fact that he 
had successfully resisted all efforts to 
take the cargo out of his ship and 
put it to use on the grounds that it 
would be a violation of Venus’ neu- 
trality and might force her into war 
on the other side. 

The Callistan frowned, obviously 
in a quandary. He was still uncon- 
vinced. He had uncovered nothing 
that was not plausible, yet nothing 
he had seen could not have been 
faked. He meant to take no chances 
on letting a prize slip through his fin- 
gers. Yet he knew that Venus was 
opposed to this resumption of the 
war and was itching for an excuse to 
patch up her differences with the 
mother planet and come to her aid. 
Kemp sensed his hesitation, and by 
an almost imperceptible twitch of an 
eyelid got the signal across to Red 
Learv. The time had come to play 
their trump. 

Red’s freckle-specked hand stole 
behind him and fumbled for a but- 
ton. On the third try he managed 
to trip the latch on a small cupboard, 
the one where the star charts were 
ordinarily kept. Kemp went on talk- 
ing, pleading now to be allowed to 
go on to his destination. 

“Hell and damnation!” yelled the 
Callistan, leaping frantically. Some- 
thing disreputably ragged-looking 
and dirty white was clinging to a 
wildly kicking calf. 

“So sorry,” cried Kemp in dis- 
mayed apology, and dived for it. 



For a moment he was busy dodging 
the boarding officer’s scuffling knees, 
but after a false grab or two he came 
up clutching a queer and malodorous 
little animal by the scruff of the 
neck. “I should have warned you 
about Flo-FIo. She doesn’t like 
strangers.” 

The creature was a full-grown trig- 
glemouse, one of those feathered ro- 
dents peculiar to Venus. For some 
reason unfathomed by the remainder 
of the inhabitants of the Solar Sys- 
tem — unless it was blind superstition 
— the men of Venus cherished the 
beasts. No ship from there ever took 
the void without one as a mascot. 
Yet they stank and they stole and 
they nipped friend and foe alike with 
their sharp, ehiselly teeth, and they 
had other habits that, to say the 
least, were not nice. In fact, the 
aversion to them was so strong 
among most Earthmen that when 
Flo-FIo was requisitioned, all the 
zoos of the Earth had to be combed 
before she could be located. 

The Callistan glowered for a long 
time after he had blasted the miser- 
able animal out of existence, but as 
his curses died away it was obvious 
enough that whatever lingering 
doubts he may have had as to the 
authenticity of the Cloud Queen 
were dissipated. With a snort he 
stalked to the chart rack and entered 
the fact of his inspection in the log 
and indorsed it. Then he flung off 
down the passage, beckoning his two 
men to follow him. 

“Get this st inkpot out of here. I’m 
through with you,” he said as the 
lock door closed behind him. 

“Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir.” 
Kemp felt he could afford a little 
politeness. He was through; and in 
his hand he held a scribbled memo- 
randum of the correct answers to 
challenges for the next three weeks 
— the time necessary to reach Gany- 



BLOCKADE RUNNER 



49 



mede. The Callistan had given him 
the recognition signals to expedite 
his trip, so convinced was he that he 
was dealing with a genuine Venusian. 

“Well,” said Kemp as he set his 
jets going again, “that’s that. Now 
all we have to do is straighten out for 
Oberon, fake a new set of papers, 
trade this stuff for what we want, 
and then get back in again.” 

“That last will be tough, I’m 
thinking,” remarked Red. 

“Tough?” was Sparks’ contribu- 
tion. “Damn near impossible, I calls 
it.” 

“As long as that ‘near’ is in we’re 
O. K.,” said Kemp cheerily. “Give 
’er another G, Red. We can stand 
it.” 

Three times before they cleared 
the last of the asteroids they were 
challenged by roving cruisers, but 
thanks to knowing the answers and 
also to the general belief that the 
Earth blockade was break proof, she 
was not halted and searched again. 
Kemp had time to consider his next 
steps. 

The more he pondered the enor- 
mous task assigned him, the more he 
was struck with the irony of the 
situation. The Earth, mistress of 
the remnants of what had been the 
far-flung Tellurian Empire, and a 
hundredfold more populous and rich 
than all the other peoples of the 
Solar System combined, was lying 
helpless before the might of two of 
her erstwhile colonies. They lacked 
the men and the resources to invade 
the mother planet, but they could, 
and had, cut her off from all inter- 
course without. Their strategy was 
simple. While holding the Tellurian 
fleet immobile, they would sweep up 
the remaining Earth colonies — the 
the Saturnian System and what lay 
beyond. After that they would con- 



trol the only known supply of the 
fuel upon which civilization had be- 
come dependent. Earth would there- 
after have to pay through the nose, 
for the ultra-powerful Eka-Uranium 
existed only on Oberon. 

This anomalous state of affairs had 
been made possible by the weak and 
parsimonious policy followed by the 
grand council after the successful 
War of the Rebellion a decade earlier. 
Having granted the three revolting 
planets their liberty and signed per- 
petual treaties of friendship, the 
Earth allowed its fleet to deteriorate 
until it was no more than a mere 
customs patrol. On the other hand, 
the colonists, embittered by long 
years of misrule, wanted more than 
independence — they wanted revenge. 
Hence they at once began building 
on a vast scale, but secretly. And 
when those fleets were strong enough, 
they struck. Earth, caught utterly 
unprepared, could not strike back. 

They built feverishly, trying to 
make up for the error of unprepared- 
ness. Every sky yard on the planet 
worked night and day turning out 
ships. Soon, every week saw sleek 
new units, bristling with the most 
modern armament, making the short 
jump to Luna, where they were given 
crews and joined to the fast-growing 
fleet. In the course of a few months 
they almost equaled the blockading 
squadron. A few more months and 
they would excel it. And then a 
shocked world learned the awful 
truth — there was no fuel for such a 
tremendous fleet. The paeifistic and 
incapable council had not foreseen 
this contingency and had provided 
no reserves. There was only fuel 
enough for one take-off, and that one 
necessarily of short duration. What 
there was must be conserved for 
emergencies — such as sudden de- 
structive raids on the great Earth 
cities themselves. Therein lay the 



50 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



delicious irony of the situation. The 
blockade prevented the arrival of the 
fuel by which the blockade could 
easily be broken. Given fuel, the 
Earth could have all the fuel there 
was; without it, she must soon ca- 
pitulate, for it was needed for civil 
purposes, also. There was already 
much suffering. 

Ship after ship had made the at- 
tempt, trying every sort of ruse and 
trick. None had come back. Kemp 
had been permitted to make one last 
try. If he returned within the allot- 
ted time, the war would be won; if 
not, it was to be surrender. 

It had been left to him what dis- 
guise he would use, and what plan. 
He chose the simplest one of all — 
that of a straight merchant ship with 
no reservations. He had the feeling 
that the others had been unmasked 
by their secret armament, and there- 
fore he resolved to carry none. No 
matter how cleverly concealed, weap- 
ons — if adequate — could not escape 
a really thorough search. The thing 
must be done by guile, and to that 
he bent every effort, knowing that 
success or failure hung on some tiny 
detail. 

Once past the blockading cruisers, 
he was confronted with the next step 
— the acquisition of a thousand tons 
of Eka-Uranium at Oberon. He soon 
learned, by listening in on the enemy 
radio, that Oberon had long since 
fallen and was garrisoned by an ex- 
peditionary force from Mars. The 
Claud Queen’s papers would have to 
be altered to meet another hostile 
scrutiny, all mention of the fictitious 
sojourn on Luna must be deleted, 
and the destination changed. When 
he had completed his work, the docu- 
ments purported to show that the 
ship was straight out of Venus for 
the outer planets, with cargo uncon- 
signed. Her captain was authorized 



to trade at discretion and return. He 
took good care, too, that the page 
bearing the endorsement of the 
boarding officer was left in the rec- 
ord. Tt showed the ship to have been 
inspected and passed by a control 
officer. 

All went smoothly in Spriteburg. 
A shipload of Venusian products was 
most welcome on the desolate planet, 
and no one raised embarrassing ques- 
tions. Beyond some haggling as to 
price and considerable well-simulated 
indignation at the interplanetary ex- 
change rate quoted, Kemp was called 
on for little effort. The afternoon of 
the second day, after he had dis- 
charged his cargo, he shot the Cloud 
Queen over the Elfin Range and laid 
her into the landing docks at the 
mines. Twenty-four earthly hours 
after that he was chockablock full of 
the precious Eka-Uranium. There 
were a thousand tons of it — enough 
to fuel the entire new Tellurian fleet 
to capacity, and with some to spare. 

It was not until he called at the 
captain of the port’s office for his 
clearance papers that he had any 
premonition of trouble to come. The 
day of his arrival he had dealt with 
a deputy, but now it was different. 
A man sat there whom he had seen 
before. In a moment he placed him. 
At the time when he had been in the 
circumsolar patrol, four years earlier, 
this captain of the port had been resi- 
dent on Venus as consul general for 
Mars. As such he could be expected 
to be fairly familiar with Venusian 
shipping. Kemp was thankful for 
his beard and grayed hairs, for on 
several occasions he had dined with 
the man. 

The captain of the port signed the 
papers without a word. As he 
handed them across the desk to 
Kemp, he said, in an offhand way. 

“I see you are owned by Turnly & 
Hightower. Please give my regards 



BLOCKADE RUNNER 



51 



to Mr. Turnly when you hit Venus 
again. By the way, how is the old 
boy? Someone told me he had not 
been well lately.” 

“Oh, he keeps going,” laughed 
Kemp, pocketing the papers and the 
Manual for the Guidance of Neutral 
Vessels that was handed to him with 
it. He was affecting a casualness 
about it that he was far from feeling. 
In his researches in connection with 
outfitting the Cloud Queen, he had 
been unable to learn much about her 
fictitious owners. There was a photo 
on board showing Mr. Hightower in 
the front door of the home office, sur- 
rounded by the clerical staff, but con- 
cerning the senior partner Kemp had 
been unable to learn anything. It 
was the weakest link in his armor, 
and he was ardently hoping the con- 
versation would take another turn. 

“So he keeps going,” murmured 
the port captain dreamily, drumming 
softly on the desk with his plump 
white fingers. “Hm-m-m. Most un- 
canny, really.” He regarded Kemp 
thoughtfully for a moment, and then, 
suddenly, as if aroused from a deep 
daydream, rose and took his hand. 
“Well, captain, you may as well take 
off. Follow the trajectory assigned 
and you’ll have no trouble. A clean 
void and a happy landfall to you. 
And don’t forget my message — 
Horntrimmer is the name.” 

As the Cloud Queen sped along 
trajectory XXX-B-37, dutifully do- 
ing all the things required by the 
Martian-Jovian rules, Kemp turned 
this little talk over and over in his 
mind. He didn’t like it. There was 
something vaguely ominous about it. 
Why uncanny? Horntrimmer's atti- 
tude had been peculiar, to say the 
least. Yet he had permitted the ship 
to clear when it would have been 
easy to hold her. If he had been sus- 
picious of her, again why? 



Kemp had no answers to these 
questions, but they troubled him, 
nevertheless. He spent his spare 
hours prowling the ship or standing 
in the auxiliary motor room, study- 
ing the equipment. He was racking 
his brain for a means to improvise a 
method of defense if it came to that, 
but he found little ground on which 
to base his hopes. None, in fact, for 
the power plant was just sufficient to 
operate the ship’s legitimate auxiliar- 
ies without a dozen kilowatts to 
spare. Nor w r as there an ounce of 
any sort of explosive aboard. The 
ship was truly unarmed. If its dis- 
guise failed, all was lost. The only 
way to break the blockade was to 
adhere to the plan agreed upon be- 
fore leaving Luna. 

That plan was daring in its sim- 
plicity, and two thirds of it had been 
accomplished. There was left only 
the last step. Exactly two hundred 
hours before striking the sphere of 
swirling enemy cruisers that consti- 
tuted the blockade, the Cloud Queen 
was to send out a certain signal and 
keep repeating it until its receipt was 
acknowledged. Then she was to 
climb out of the ecliptic so that she 
could dive onto Earth from the 
north, through a region that was 
thinly patrolled. A few hours before 
her arrival at the barrier a picked 
squadron of heavy Tellurian battle- 
ships would make a vigorous attack 
upon a nearby segment of the block- 
ade, using what was left of their 
hoarded fuel to create a diversion so 
that the blackade runner could slip 
through. Cruisers rushing to meet 
the Tellurian feint would not stop to 
examine a rusty merchantman, even 
if they detected her, was the theory. 
It was upon such a slender thread 
that the hopes of the Earthmen 
hung. 

It was over the asteroids that 
Kemp sent his signal, set his deflec- 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



69 

tors for hard rise, and climbed still 
higher. And it was but a matter of 
some eight hours later that the keys 
of the radio began to clatter out the 
harsh orders of a pursuing cruiser. 
The fast Callistan Folliot was over- 
hauling the Cloud Queen and de- 
manding that she blast down and 
wait. Kemp's face was drawn and 
the lines in it hard as he listened to 
the words being tapped out, but 
there was nothing to do but comply. 
He gave the necessary orders. 

“As I live and breathe,” exclaimed 
the boarding officer as the inner door 
of the lock slid open, “if it isn’t my 
old friend, the Venusian! Fancy 
meeting you here!” It was the iden- 
tical Callistan who had made the 
examination on the way out. He 
oozed sarcasm from every pore. 
“And — oh, yes, before I forget it — 
Commodore Horntrimmer instructed 
me to tell you that Mr. Turnly died 
three years ago. He was his father- 
in-law.” The Callistan chuckled ma- 
liciously. Then he turned to the 
officer and group of men who had 
come aboard with him. 

“Check these dopes for guns, then 
set watches. After that you can stow 
your baggage and settle down. We’ll 
take this bucket in on this course and 
refuel our own fleet with it.” lie 
leered triumphantly at the crest- 
fallen Kemp. 

Captain Kemp and his men were 
not locked up, but forced to carry on 
their regular duty under the watch- 
ful eyes of the prize crew. One or 
the other of the two officers was al- 
ways in the control room, sitting in 
the master’s seat at the midst of the 
main switchboard. Two armed blue- 
jackets stood at the door, ready to 
carry out any command. The Cal- 
listan who had seized the vessel — 
one Commander Tilsen — produced a 
fat volume with locked covers and 



began sending long code messages. 
The Folliot, which had hovered ten 
or twelve miles on the beam all the 
while, dashed away, spewing violet 
fire in her wake. The Cloud Queen 
was left to make the rest of her way 
alone. 

Kemp was forced to stand the 
same watch as Tilsen took, and had 
to bear the incessant stream of ex- 
ultant remarks emanating from him. 
Although he pretended he had never 
been fooled in the first place, but had 
allowed the ship to go on through, 
knowing full well they could inter- 
cept it at will, Kemp knew that he 
was lying — trying to save face. Til- 
sen predicted with great relish that 
as soon as the cargo had been dis- 
charged, Kemp would be hustled off 
to Mars and hanged ignominiously 
as a spy, together with all his men. 

During the first rest period, Kemp 
lay and tossed and fretted, going 
over in imagination for the hun- 
dredth time every detail of the ship 
he had come to know well. He must 
do something, if only warn Earth of 
the existing state of affairs. But 
cudgel his brain as he would, he 
could think of no way to devise a 
weapon by which he could wrest con- 
trol from his captors. And then, as 
he was mentally following the wiring 
diagram of the vessel for the nth 
time, a thought struck him as ab- 
ruptly and as clearly as if a gong had 
been struck. The infrared projector, 
of course! There was power — of a 
sort; five million volts, even if the 
amperage was trifling. Surely some- 
thing could be done with that. 

That time when the rest period 
was up he marched to the control 
room gladly. There were a few de- 
tails of the ship’s construction he had 
never troubled to note. Now they 
had taken on a new meaning. 

Throughout that watch, his eyes 
sought the overhead every time he 



BLOCKADE RUNNER 



53 



felt the gaze^of the sentries off of 
him. He was interested in the exact 
location of the housing of the search- 
light perched on the hull above. It 
was clearly delineated by the double 
row of rivets, the center being almost 
directly over the seat whereon the 
Callistan Tilsen sat, talking glibly of 
the tortures the Martian code per- 
mitted on certain types of con- 
demned prisoners. Kemp yawned as. 
he pretended to listen, his mind busy 
with multiplying and adding the esti- 
mated distance between groups of 
rivets. Before the watch was over he 
knew what he wanted to know, and 
spent the remainder of the time 
memorizing the facts he had ob- 
served. 

That rest period he did not toss 
and fret. He knew precisely what he 
wanted to do. Fifteen minutes after 
the watch below had settled to its 
rest, Kemp was scudding down the 
darkened passage, bound for the en- 
gineer's storeroom. Except for the 
guards in the control room, and one 
in the auxiliary generator room, the 
ship was unpatrolled. The captors 
were contemptuous of their victims, 
serene in the belief that there was 
nothing they could do. 

Kemp shut the door of the store- 
room behind him. A moment later 
he was hard at work with a hacksaw, 



cutting off a six-foot length of one- 
inch round copper bar taken from 
the electrical stock. And when he 
had done that he seized a file and 
beveled one end of it to as nearly 
forty -five degrees as he could make 
it. It was but a matter of minutes 
before he was done, for the metal was 
not hard. 

Up to that point he was well satis- 
fied, but when he went to get a 
heavy-metal disk he found that what 
he wanted was not in store. He took 
down a tube hand-hole plug and ex- 
amined it critically. It was of plati- 
num, four inches in diameter, but 
much too thick — it would not do. 
For fifteen minutes he pawed 
through the bins, but all the disk- 
shaped pieces were too wide or not 
wide enough, or of light metals such 
as steel and bronze. A high atomic 
number he must have. 

Just as a fresh wave of discourage- 
ment swept over him, he thought of 
the handful of 100-uran pieces he had 
taken in Oberon to adjust the differ- 
ences of the values of the cargoes he 
had traded. Those massive three- 
inch coins were minted of gold, al- 
loyed with a little iridium. For 
shape, size and composition they 
were exactly what he needed. Be- 
fore the watch was over he had 
brazed one neatly to the beveled end 




64 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



of his long copper rod, and the face 
of the tilted disk shone like a mirror 
where he had filed it smooth. He 
stood it in a corner, along with the 
tube scrapers, and went back to his 
bunk, well pleased with his first step. 

The seemingly interminable tour 
of duty came to an end. Kemp 
counted the seconds, after they 
had been relieved, so anxious was he 
to get on with the task he had set 
himself. At the end of ten minutes 
all appeared to be quiet, so he stole 
away to the storeroom. His odd- 
shaped real was still there, unmo- 
lested. He took a space helmet from 
the rack and put it on. He slung the 
brazing kit over his shoulder, picked 
up a sledge, a pair of wrenches, and 
the gold-tipped copper rod and made 
his way to the space lock. 

No one heard him go out, for he 
eased the doors very carefully to, and 
the hull was so well insulated that 
once he was outside the slight noise 
caused by his scuffing shoes could 
not be heard within. He crawled 
straight for the headlight and 
stacked his tools beside it. One by 
one he backed off the nuts that held 
the focusing lens to its frame. Then 
he lifted it out and went to work on 
the filters behind it. At the end of 
the half-hour he had come to the 
front end of the vacuum tube itself, 
which he broke with one hard lick 
of the sledge. It was a trying and 
dirty job to pry the complicated 
heating elements out, and he had to 
watch out for the the fragments of 
the tube, but within another hour he 
had the tube clean of all it had for- 
merly held. He lay full length in a 
hollow cylinder, ten feet long by a 
yard in diameter. Near each end of 
it were the cable terminals, waiting 
to be tapped. 

Swiftly he erected the rod on the 
base formed by the inner end, and 



brazed it into place. Then he hooked 
it up to the cable end. He had 
formed the cathode of his contriv- 
ance. He backed away to the open 
end of the housing, and there he 
rigged an anode. When he was done 
he replaced the outermost piece he 
had removed to get in, bolted it fast, 
then went below. His watch showed 
he had an hour to spare. He had 
-plenty of time to whisper a few words 
of instruction to Sparks, under whose 
desk the foot switch that operated 
the headlight was located. 

When they went on watch again, 
Sparks kicked the switch shut, and 
Kemp took up his surreptitious vigil. 
He knew it would take time, but he 
did not know how much. He knew 
there were going to be some extraor- 
dinary results, but he did not know- 
quite what. But three hundred mil- 
liamperes flung at a golden disk at 
five million volts’ pressure was sure 
to do something. 

The watch wore on, with Tilsen’s 
customary string of jibes. At the 
end of the first hour the Callistan’s 
flow of words began to jerk to a stop 
more frequently, and the pauses be- 
tween bursts became longer. The 
man began to wear a puzzled, hurt 
expression, and several times he took 
off his cap and rubbed his head. He 
did not seem to notice that hair by 
the handful show T ered dow n upon his 
shoulders after the last such head ca- 
ressing. 

“What the hell has gone wrong 
with the air?” he screamed suddenly, 
springing up from his seat and then 
settling back into it. “Oh, how my 
head aches!” 

Red Leary checked the indicators 
and sang out their readings. Every- 
thing was normal; the air-condition- 
ing system was functioning perfectly. 
The big Callistan scowled at him, not 
acknowdedging, but apparently ae- 



BLOCKADE RUNNER 



55 



cepting what Red said. He resumed 
his former position, but would stoop 
ever so often to snatch at his leg. 
Presently he called to one of the Cal- 
listan sailors who stood on guard at 
the back of the room. When the 
sailor came up to him he leaned for- 
ward and plucked some imaginary 
something away from his thigh. 

“Take that damn thing out and 
kill it,” he directed, his voice full of 
venom. “Blasted wild cat!” 

After that he slumped a little in 
the saddle and dropped his chin on 
his chest, brooding. Kemp measured 
his posture carefully by eye and won- 
dered whether the tilt of his head had 
thrown him out of the cone of invisi- 
ble rays that was playing down from 
above. But apparently it had not, 
for at the end of another quarter 
hour Tilsen sprang suddenly erect, 
his eyes almost starting from his 
head. 

“Back! Back! Back ’er full! Gla- 
ciers ahead!” He was shrieking 
wildly and clawing at the board in 
front of him. A trembling hand 
came to rest on a glazed clock face, 
and the smooth crystal seemed to 
soothe him. He ceased yelling and 
sat shuddering as he was, with beads 
of cold sweat rolling off his brow and 
splashing down onto the board. One 
of his ears twitched violently, flutter- 
ing like a leaf in the breeze. The two 
bluejackets had come up closer and 
were watching him in alarm, wide- 
eyed. 

“Shall I call your relief, sir?” asked 
one of them timidly. 

Tilsen was a hard man, even with 
his own. He swung in the chair, 
staring coldly and malignantly at the 
man. "So serpents speak in this val- 
ley?” he hissed, sliding out of his 
chair into a half crouch, as if about 
to spring at the unfortunate man. 
His hand went to the butt of his ray 
gun as the terrified sailor backed 



away from him. Like lightning, he 
drew and went into frenzied action. 
He cut down the first sailor with a 
blast that seared away half his chest, 
and before the other could bring him- 
self to fire on his own officer, him, 
too, he blasted. Then, with a mighty 
curse, he flung his gun at the bodies 
and stood swaying drunkenlv where 
he stood. 

Kemp looked on with awe, won- 
dering what his handiwork would 
bring next. 

Just as the other officer appeared 
in the doorway with the remaining 
sailors crowded behind, Tilsen 
seemed to lose all interest in his sur- 
roundings. He began picking at 
himself, slowly at first, as if to rid 
himself of imaginary ants, and then 
more wildly, until in another minute 
he was tearing at his clothes as if they 
were on fire. Then he gave one ear- 
splitting scream and fell to the deck 
in convulsions, rolling, kicking and 
biting. It was there that his fellow 
countrymen overpowered him and 
slipped the irons about his wrists and 
ankles 

“What did you do to him?” de- 
manded the officer of Kemp furi- 
ously. 

Kemp shrugged. “He went mad 
— that is all. How could I help 
that?” 

The officer gazed at the helpless, 
writhing form at his feet. Not the 
most casual glance could miss notic- 
ing the horrible condition of the 
head. Not only had the hair been 
stripped away from top and back, 
but the skin and the superficial flesh 
as well. It was as if a mysterious 
flame had seared it. Yet no known 
weapon made such a wound — a 
blaster would have burned the whole 
skull away. 

He examined the room intently, 
and even went so far as to expose 
plates set at various angles about the 



56 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



master’s chair, but Sparks had 
kicked his switch open long before — 
at the moment the crazed Callistan 
had sprung from the seat. The de- 
veloped plates showed nothing. 

“That’s damned funny,” muttered 
the Callistan lieutenant as he stud- 
ied them. “It must have been hard 
radiation — nothing else could have 
made those brands.” 

He frowned and tossed the feature- 
less plates into a corner. Maybe his 
commander was just a bit crazy, 
after all, he told himself. There had 
been occasions — 

“I’ll take over,” he barked, glow- 
ering at the watching Earthmen. 

Then he slid into the master’s seat 
himself. 

“That’s the story,” finished Kemp 
three days later. “We did the same 
thing to his sidekick. After that the 
men were easy. We brought in two 
alive.” 

He was standing before the desk 
of the admiral commandant of Luna 
base. Outside, safely nestled in the 
vast crater, the battered Cloud 
Queen lay, a huge battleship along- 
side either side, taking on the vital 
fuel. 

“Thanks to the battle you put on, 
as per schedule, there was only one 
enemy cruiser in our way, and we 
fooled him into letting us pass. We 
had the Martian code book, you 
know. We sent him a tripled 
triple-X, which in their code signifies, 
‘On urgent confidential mission of 
highest importance; do not inter- 
fere.’ ” 

THE 



“Nice work,” congratulated the 
admiral. “I’ll see that you get the 
Celestial Cross and a promotion at 
the very least. But how — ” 

“Gamma rays,” said Kemp. “I 
knew they played hell with living 
organism, so the only problem I had 
was to rig up a giant X-ray machine 
where I could bring it to bear on 
those birds, knowing that they would 
not suspect until it was too late. 
You can’t feel the things, you know. 

“For that I needed a huge vacuum 
tube, a cathode of the right material, 
and scads of voltage. By going out- 
side the hull I had my vacuum ready- 
made; the cathode I improvised out 
of stuff on board; the voltage was al- 
ready there, awaiting the flip of a 
switch. The fact that the gamma 
rays had to go through an inch of 
iridium steel didn’t detract much 
from their poisonous qualities. In 
fact, I imagine the secondary radia- 
tions from the radiated iron did al- 
most as much damage as the hard 
stuff bouncing off that gold 100-uran 
piece. Anyhow, it was enough to ad- 
dle their brains. By the time their 
reaction was strong enough to tip 
them off that something was wrong, 
they were too far gone to be able to 
add two and two and get anything 
out of it.” 

“Sort of homemade Coolidge tube, 
eh?” observed the admiral command- 
ant. 

“Sort of,” grinned Kemp, thinking 
of the unholy mess he had made of a 
perfectly good Venusian infrared 
searchlight. “But it worked.” 

END. 



m 




fllflSQUERHDf 

By Clifford 0. Simak 

The Roman Candles of Mercury weren't the fireworks kind 
they were alive. Everybody knew that, and that they could 
make mirages. But they didn't know how good they were— 



Illustrated by Eron 



Oi.d Creepy was down in the con- 
trol room, sawing lustily on his 
screeching fiddle. 

On the sun-blasted plains outside 
the Mercutian Power Center, the 



Roman Candles, snatching their 
shapes from Creepy’s mind, had as- 
sumed the form of Terrestrial hill- 
billies and were cavorting through 
the measures of a square dance. 




68 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



In the kitchen, Rastus rolled two 
cubes about the table, crooning to 
them, feeling lonesome because no 
one would shoot a game of craps 
with him. 

Inside the refrigeration room, Ma- 
thilde, the cat, stared angrily at the 
slabs of frozen beef above her head, 
felt the cold of the place and meowed 
softly, cursing herself for never be- 
ing able to resist the temptation of 
sneaking in when Rastus wasn’t 
looking. 

Up in the office, at the peak of the 
great photocell that was the center. 
Curt Craig stared angrily across the 
desk at Norman Page. 

One hundred miles away, Knut 
Anderson, incased in a cumbersome 
photocell space suit, stared incredu- 
lously at what he saw inside the 
space warp. 

The communications bank snarled 
warningly and Craig swung about in 
his chair, lifted the handset off the 
cradle and snapped recognition into 
the mouthpiece. 

“This is Knut, chief,” said a voice, 
badly blurred by radiations. 

“Yes,” yelled Craig. “What did 
you find?” 

“A big one,” said Knut’s voice. 

“Where?” 

“I’ll give you the location.” 

Craig snatched up a pencil, wrote 
rapidly as the voice spat and crack- 
led at him. 

“Bigger than anything on record,” 
shrilled Knut’s voice. “Space busted 
wide open and twisted all to hell. 
The instruments went nuts.” 

“We’ll have to slap a tracer on it,” 
said Craig, tensely. “Take a lot of 
power, but we’ve got to do it. If 
that thing starts to move — ” 

Knut’s voice snapped and blurred 
and sputtered so Craig couldn’t hear 
a word he said. 

“You come back right away,” 



Craig yelled. “It’s dangerous out 
there. Get too close to that thing. 
Let it swing toward you and you — ” 

Knut interrupted, his voice wal- 
lowing in the wail of tortured beam. 
“There’s something else, chief. 
Something funny. Damn funny — ” 

The voice pinched out. 

Craig shrieked into the mouth- 
piece. “What is it, Knut? What’s 
funny?” 

He stopped, astonished, for sud- 
denly the crackle and hissing and 
whistle of the communications beam 
was gone. 

His left hand flicked out to the 
board and snapped a toggle. The 
board hummed as tremendous power 
surged into the call. It took power 
— lots of power, to maintain a tight 
beam on Mercury. But there was no 
answering hum — no indication the 
beam was being restored. 

Something had happened out 
there! Something had snapped the 
beam. 

Craig stood up, white-faced, to 
stare through the ray filter port to 
the ashy plains. Nothing to get ex- 
cited about. Not vet, anyway. 
Wait for Knut to get back. It 
wouldn’t take long. lie had told 
Knut to start at once, and those 
puddle jumpers could travel. 

But what if Knut didn't come 
back? What if that space warp had 
moved? 

The biggest one on 'record, Knut 
had said. Of course, there always 
were a lot of them one had to keep 
an eye on, but very few big enough 
to really worry about. Little whirl- 
pools and eddies where the space- 
time continuum was wavering 
around, wondering which way it 
ought to jump. 

Not dangerous, just a bother. 
Had to be careful not to drive a pud- 
dle jumper into one. But a big one. 



MASQUERADE 



59 



if it started to move, might engulf 
the plant— 

Outside, the Candles were kicking 
up the dust, shuffling and hopping 
and flapping their arms. For the 
moment they were mountain folk 
back in the hills of Earth, having 
them a hoe down. But there was 
something grotesque about them — 
like scarecrows set to music. 

The plains of Mercury stretched 
away to the near horizon, rolling 
plains of bitter dust. The Sun was 
a monstrous thing of bright-blue 
flame in a sky of inky black, ribbons 
of scarlet curling out like snaky ten- 
tacles. 

Mercury was its nearest to the Sun 
— a mere twenty-nine million miles 
distant, and that probably explained 
the warp. The nearness to the Sun 
and the epidemic of sunspots. Al- 
though the sunspots may not have 
had anything to do with it. Nobody 
knew. 

Craig had forgotten Page until 
the man coughed, and then he turned 
away from the port and went back 
to the desk. 

“I hope,” said Page, “that you 
have reconsidered. This project of 
mine means a lot to me.” 

Craig was suddenly swept with an- 
ger at the man’s persistence. 

"I gave you my answer once,” he 
snapped. “That is enough. When 
I say a thing, I mean it.” 

“I can’t see your objection,” said 
Page flatlv. “After all, these Can- 
dles—” 

"You’re not capturing any Can- 
dies,” said Craig. “Your idea is the 
most crackpot, from more than one 
viewpoint, that I have ever heard.” 

“I can’t understand this strange 
attitude of yours,” argued Page. “I 
was assured at Washington — ” 

Craig’s anger flared. “I don’t give 
a damn what Washington assured 



you. You’re going back as soon as 
the oxygen ship comes in. And 
you’re going back without a Can- 
dle.” 

“It would do no harm. And I’m 
prepared to pay well for any services 
you—” 

Craig ignored the hinted bribe, 
leveled a pencil at Page. 

“Let me explain it to you once 
again,” he said. “Very carefully and 
in full, so you will understand. 

“The Candles are natives of Mer- 
cury. They were here first. They 
were here when men came, and 
they’ll probably be here long after 
men depart. They have let us be 
and we have let them be. And we 
have let them be for just one rea- 
son — one damn good reason. You, 
see, we don’t know what they could 
do if we stirred them up. We are 
afraid of what they might do.” 

Page opened his mouth to speak, 
but Craig waved him into silence and 
went on. 

“They are organisms of pure en- 
ergy. Things that draw their life 
substance directly from the Sun — 
just as you and I do. Only we get 
ours by a roundabout way. Lot 
more efficient than we are by that 
very token, for they absorb their en- 
ergy direct, while we get ours by 
chemical processes. 

“And when we’ve said that much 
— that’s about all we can say. Be- 
cause that’s all we know about them. 
We’ ve watched those Candles for 
five hundred years and they still are 
strangers to us.” 

“You think they are intelligent?” 
asked Page, and the question was a 
sneer. 

“Why not?” snarled Craig. “You 
think they aren’t because Man can’t 
communicate with them. Just be- 
cause they didn’t break their necks 
to talk with men. 

“Just because they haven’t talked 



60 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent. 
Perhaps they haven’t communicated 
with us because their thought and 
reasoning would have no common 
basis for intelligent communication 
with mankind. Perhaps it’s because 
they regard Man as an inferior race 
— a race upon which it isn’t even 
worth their while to waste their 
time.” 

“You’re crazy,” yelled Page. 
“They have watched us all these 
years. They’ve seen what we can 
do. They’ve seen our space ships 
— they’ve seen us build this plant — 
they’ve seen us shoot power across 
millions of miles to the other plan- 
ets.” 

“Sure,” agreed Craig, “they’ve 
seen all that. But would it impress 
them? Are you sure it would? Man, 
the great architect! Would you bust 
a gut trying to talk to a spider, or 
an orchard oriole, or a mud wasp? 
You bet your sweet life you 
wouldn’t. And they’re great archi- 
tects, every one of them.” 

Page bounced angrily in his chair. 
“If they're superior to us,” he roared, 
“where are the things they’ve done? 
Where are their cities, their ma- 
chines, their civilizations?” 

“Perhaps,” suggested Craig, “they 
outlived machines and cities mil- 
lennia ago. Perhaps they’ve reached 
a stage of civilization where they 
don’t need mechanical things.” 

He tapped the pencil on the desk. 

“Consider this. Those Candles 
are immortal. They’d have to be. 
There’d be nothing to kill them. 
They apparently have no bodies — 
just balls of energy. That’s their an- 
swer to their environment. And you 
have the nerve to think of capturing 
some of them! You, who know noth- 
ing about them, plan to take them 
back to Earth to use as a circus at- 
traction, a side-show drawing card — 



something for fools to gape at!” 
“People come out here to see 
them,” Page countered. “Plenty of 
them. The tourist bureaus use them 
in their advertising.” 

“That’s different,” roared Craig. 
“If the Candles want to put on a 
show on home territory, there’s noth- 
ing we can do about it. But you 
can’t drag them away from here and 
show them off. That would spell 
trouble and plenty of it!” 

“But if they’re so damned intelli- 
gent,” yelped Page, “why do they 
put on those shows at all? Just 
think of something and presto! — 
they’re it. Greatest mimics in the 
Solar System. And they never get 
anything right. It’s always cock- 
eyed. That’s the beauty of it.” 

“It’s cockeyed,” snapped Craig, 
“because man’s brain never fashions 
a letter-perfect image. The Candles 
pattern themselves directly after the 
thoughts they pick up. When you 
think of something you don’t give 
them all the details — your thoughts 
are sketchy. You can’t blame the 
Candles for that. They pick up 
what you give them and fill in the 
rest as best they can. Therefore 
camels with flowing manes, camels 
with four and five humps, camels 
with horns, an endless parade of 
screwball camels, if camels are what 
you are thinking of.” 

He flung the pencil down angrily. 
“And don’t you kid yourself the 
Candles are doing it to amuse us. 
More than likely they believe we are 
thinking up all those swell ideas just 
to please them. They’re having the 
time of their lives. Probably that’s 
the only reason they’ve tolerated us 
here — because we have such amus- 
ing thoughts. 

“When Man first came here they 
were just pretty, colored balls roll- 
ing around on the surface, anil some- 
one called them Roman Candles be- 



MASQUERADE 



61 



cause that’s what they looked like. 
But since that day they’ve been ev- 
erything Man has ever thought of.” 
Page heaved himself out of the 
chair. 

“I shall report your attitude to 
Washington, Captain Craig.” 

"Report and be damned,” growled 
Craig. “Maybe you’ve forgotten 
where you are. You aren’t back on 
Earth, where bribes and boot-licking 
and bulldozing will get a man almost 
anything he wants. You're at the 
power center on the Sunward side of 
Mercury. This is the main source 
of power for all the planets. Let this 
power plant fail, let the transmission 
beams be cut off and the Solar Sys- 
tem goes to hell!” 

He pounded the desk for empha- 
sis. 

"I'm in charge here, and when I 
say a thing it stands, for you as well 
as anyone. My job is to keep this 
plant going, keep the power pouring 
out to the planets. And I’m not let- 
ting some half-baked fool come out 
here and make me trouble. While 
I’m here, no one is going to stir up 
the Candles. We’ve got plenty of 
trouble without that.” 

Page edged toward the door, but 
Craig stopped him. 

“Just a little word of warning,” 
he said, speaking softly. “If I were 
you, I wouldn’t try to sneak out any 
of the puddle jumpers, including 
your own. After each trip the oxy- 
gen tank is taken out and put into 
the charger, so it’ll be at first ca- 
pacity for the next trip. The charger 
is locked and there's just one key. 
And I have that.” 

He locked eyes with the man at 
the door and went on. 

“There’s a little oxygen left in the 
jumper, of course. Half an hour’s 
supply, maybe. Possibly less. After 
that there isn’t any more. It’s not 
nice to be caught like that. They 



found a fellow that had happened to 
just a day or so ago over near one 
of the Twilight Belt stations.” 

But Page was gone, slamming the 
door. 

The Candles had stopped danc- 
ing and were rolling around, drifting 
bubbles of every hue. Occasionally 
one would essay the formation of 
some object, but the attempt would 
be half-hearted and the Candle once 
more would revert to its natural 
sphere. 

Old Creepy must have put his fid- 
dle away, Craig thought. Probably 
he was making an inspection round, 
seeing if everything was all right. 
Although there was little chance that 
anything could go wrong. The plant 
was automatic, designed to run with 
the minimum of human attention. 

The control room was a wonder 
of clicking, chuckling, chortling, 
snicking gadgets. Gadgets that kept 
the flow of power directed to the 
substations on the Twilight Belt. 
Gadgets that kept the tight beams 
from the substations centered ex- 
actly on those points in space where 
each must go to be picked up by the 
substations circling the outer plan- 
ets. 

Let one of those gadgets fail — let 
that spaceward beam sway as much 
as a fraction of a degree — Curt 
shuddered at the thought of a beam 
of terrific power smashing into a 
planet — perhaps into a city. But 
the mechanism had never failed — 
never would. It was foolproof. A 
far cry from the day when the plant 
had charged monstrous banks of con- 
verters to be carted to the outer 
worlds by lumbering spaceships. 

This was really free power, easy 
powder, plentiful power. Power car- 
ried across millions of miles on Ad- 
dison’s tight-beam principle. Free 
power to develop the farms of Venus, 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



the mines of Mars, the chemical 
plants and cold laboratories on 
Pluto. 

Down there in the control room, 
too, were other gadgets as equally 
important. The atmosphere ma- 
chine, for example, which kept the 
air mixture right, drawing on those 
tanks of liquid oxygen and nitrogen 
and other gases brought across space 
from Venus by the monthly oxygen 
ship. The refrigerating plant, the 
gravity machine, the water assem- 
bly. 

Craig heard the crunch of Creepy’s 
footsteps on the stairs and turned to 
the door as the old man shuffled into 
the room. 

Creepy’s brows were drawn down 
and his face looked like a thunder- 
cloud. 

“What’s the matter now?” asked 
Craig. 

“By cracky,” snapped Creepy, 
“you got to do something about that 
Rastus.” 

Craig grinned. “What’s up this 
time?” 

“He stole my last bottle of drink- 
ing liquor,” wailed Creepy. “I was 
hoarding it for medical purposes, and 
now it’s gone. He’s the only one 
that could have taken it.” 

“I’ll talk to Rastus,” Craig prom- 
ised. 

“Some day,” threatened Creepy, 
“I’m going to get my dander up and 
whale the everlastin’ tar out of that 
smoke. That’s the fifth bottle of 
liquor lie’s swiped off me.” 

The old man shook his head dole- 
fully, whuffled his walruslike mus- 
tache. 

“Aside from Rastus, how’s every- 
thing else going?” asked Craig. 

“Earth just rounded the Sun,” the 
old man said. “The Venus station 
took up the load.” 

Craig nodded. That was routine. 
When one planet was cut off by the 



Sun, the substations of the nearest 
planet took on an extra load, di- 
verted part of it to the first planet’s 
stations, carrying it until it was clear 
again. 

He arose from the chair and 
walked to the port, stared out across 
the dusty plains. A dot was mov- 
ing across the near horizon. A 
speedy dot, seeming to leap across 
the dead, gray wastes. 

“Knut’s coming!” he yelled to 
Creepy. 

Creepy hobbled for the doorway. 
“I’ll go down to meet him. Knot 
and me are having a game of check- 
ers as soon as he gets in.” 

Craig laughed, relieved by Knut’s 
appearance. “How many checker 
games have you and Knut played?” 
he asked. 

“Hundreds of ’em,” Creepy de- 
clared proudly. “He ain’t no match 
for me, but he thinks he is. I let 
him beat me regular to keep the in- 
terest up. I’m afraid he’d quit play- 
ing if I beat him as often as I could.” 

He started for the door and then 
turned back. “But this is my turn 
to win.” The old man chuckled in 
his mustache. “I’m goin’ to give 
him a first-class whippin’.” 

“First,” said Craig, “tell him I 
want to see him.” 

“Sure,” said Creepy, “and don’t 
you go telling him about me letting 
him beat me. That would make him 
sore.” 

Chaig tried to sleep but couldn’t. 
He was worried. Nothing definite, 
for there seemed no cause to worry. 
The tracer placed on the big warp 
revealed that it was moving slowly, 
a few feet an hour or so, in a direc- 
tion away from the center. No other 
large ones had shown up in the de- 
tectors. Everything, for the mo- 
ment, seemed under control. Just 
little things. Vague suspicions and 



MASQUERADE 



63 



wonderings — snatches here and there 
that failed to fall into the pattern. 

Knut, for instance. There wasn’t 
anything wrong' with Knut, of 
course, but while he had talked to 
him he had sensed something. An 
uneasy feeling that lifted the hair 
on the nape of his neck, made the 
skin prickle along his spine. Yet 
nothing one could lay one’s hands 
on. 

Page, loo. The damn fool proba- 
bly would try to sneak out and cap- 
ture some Candles and then there’d 
be all hell to pay. 

Funny, too, how Knut’s radios, 
both in his suit and in the jumper, 
had gone dead. Blasted out, as if 
they had been raked by a surge of 
energy. Knut couldn’t explain it, 
wouldn't try. Just shrugged his 
shoulders. Funny things always 
were happening on Mercury. 

Craig gave up trying to sleep, slid 
his feet into slippers and walked 
across the room to the port. With a 
flip of his hand he raised the shut- 
ter and stared out. 

Candles were rolling around. Sud- 
denly one of them materialized into 
a monstrous whiskey bottle, lifted in 
the air, tilted, liquid pouring to the 
ground. 

Craig chuckled. That would be 
either Old Creepy bemoaning the 
loss of that last bottle or Rastus 
sneaking off to where he’d hid it to 
take another nip. 

A furtive tap came on the door, 
and Craig wheeled. For a tense mo- 
ment he crouched, listening, as if ex- 
pecting an attack. Then he laughed 
softly to himself. He was jumpy, 
and no fooling. Maybe w r hat he 
needed was a drink. 

Again the tap, more insistent, but 
still furtive. 

“Come in,” Craig called. 

Old Creepy sidled into the room. 
“I hoped you wasn’t asleep,” he said. 



“What is it, Creepy?” And even 
as he spoke, Craig felt himself going 
tense again. Nerves all shot to hell. 

Creepy hitched forward. 

“Knut,” he whispered. “Knut 
beat me at checkers. Six times hand 
running! T didn’t have a chance!” 

Craig’s laugh exploded in the 
room. 

“But I could always beat him be- 
fore,” the old man insisted. “I even 
let him beat me every so often to 
keep him interested so he would play 
with me. And tonight I was all set 
to take him to a cleaning — 

Creepy’s face twisted, his mus- 
tache quivering. 

“And that ain’t all, by cracky. I 
felt, somehow, that Knut had 
changed and — ” 

Craig walked close to the old man, 
grasped him by the shoulder. “I 
know,” he said. “I know just how 
you felt.” Again he was remember- 
ing how the hair had crawled upon 
his skull as he talked to Knut just 
a while ago. 

Creepy nodded, pale eyes blink- 
ing, Adam’s apple bobbing. 

Craig spun on his heel, snatched 
up his shirt, started peeling off his 
pajama coat. 

“Creepy,” he rasped, “you go 
down to that control room. Get a 
gun and lock yourself in. Stay there 
until I get back. And don’t let any- 
one come in!" 

He fixed the old man with a stare. 
“You understand. Don’t let anyone 
get in! Use your gun if you are 
forced to use it. But see no one 
touches those controls!” 

Creepy’s eyes bugged and he 
gulped. “Is there going to be trou- 
ble?” he quavered. 

“I don’t know,” snapped Craig, 
“but I’m going to find out.” 

Down in the garage, Craig stared 
angrily at the empty stall. 



64 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Page’s jumper was gone! 

Grumbling with rage, Craig 
walked to the oxygen-tank rack. 
The lock was undamaged, and he in- 
serted the key. The top snapped up 
and revealed the tanks — all of them, 
nestling in rows, still attached to the 
recharger lines. Almost unbelieving, 
Craig stood there, looking at the 
tanks. 

All of them were there. That 
meant Page had started out in the 
jumper with insufficient oxygen. It 
meant the man would die out on the 
blistering wastes of Mercury. That 
he might go mad and leave his 
jumper and wander into the desert, 
a raving maniac, like the man they’d 
found out near the Twilight station. 

Craig swung about, away from the 
tanks, and then stopped, thoughts 
spinning in his brain. There wasn’t 
any use of hunting Page. The damn 
fool probably was dead by now. 
Sheer suicide, that was what it was. 
Sheer lunacy. And he had warned 
him, too! 

And he, Craig, had work to do. 
Something had happened out there 
at the space warp. He had to lay 
those tantalizing suspicions that 
rummaged through his mind. There 
were some things he had to be sure 
about. He didn’t have time to go 
hunting a man who was already 
dead, a damn fool who had commit- 
ted suicide. The man was nuts to 
start with. Anyone who thought he 
could capture Candles — 

Savagely, Craig closed one of the 
line valves, screwed shut the tank 
valve, disconnected the coupling and 
lifted the tank out of the rack. The 
tank was heavy. It had to be heavy 
to stand a pressure of two hundred 
atmospheres. 

As he started for the jumper, Ma- 
thilde, the cat, strolled down the 
ramp from the floor above and 
walked between his legs. Craig 



stumbled and almost fell, recovered 
his balance with a mighty effort and 
cursed Mathilde with a fluency born 
of practice. 

“Me-ow-ow-ow,” said Mathilde 
conversationally. 

There is something unreal about 
the Sunward side of Mercury, an ab- 
normality that is sensed rather than 
seen. 

There the Sun is nine times larger 
than seen from Earth, and the ther- 
mometer never registers under six 
hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit. 
Under that terrific heat, accompan- 
ied by blasting radiations hurled out 
by the Sun, men must wear photo- 
cell space suits, must ride in photo- 
cell cars and live in the power center, 
which in itself is little more than a 
mighty photocell. For electric power 
can be disposed of, while heat and 
radiation often cannot be. 

There the rock and soil have been 
crumbled into dust under the lashing 
of heat and radiations. There the 
horizon is near, always looming just 
ahead, like an ever-present brink. 

But it is not these things that 
make the planet so alien. Rather, it 
is the strange distortion of lines, a 
distortion that one sometimes thinks 
he can see, but is never sure. Per- 
haps the very root of that alien sense 
is the fact that the Sun’s mass makes 
a straight line an impossibility, a 
stress that bends magnetic fields and 
stirs up the very structure of space 
itself. 

Curt Craig felt that strangeness of 
Mercury as he zoomed across the 
dusty plain. The puddle jumper 
splashed through a small molten 
pool, spraying it out in sizzling 
sheets. A pool of lead, or maybe 
tin. 

But Craig scarcely noticed. At 
the back of his brain pounded a 
thousand half-formed questions. His 



MASQUERADE 



63 



eyes, edged by crow’s-feet, squinted 
through the filter shield, following 
the trail left by Knut’s returning 
machine. The oxygen tank hissed 
softly and the atmosphere mixer 
chuckled. But all else was quiet. 

A howl of terror and dismay shat- 
tered the quiet. Craig jerked the 
jumper to a stop, leaped from his 
seat, hand streaking to his gun. 

Crawling from under the metal 
bunk bolted at the rear of the car 
was Rastus, the whites of his eyes 
showing like bull's-eyes. 

“Good Lawd,” he bellowed, 
“where is I?” 

“You’re in a jumper, sixty miles 
from the Center,” snapped Craig. 
“What I want to know is how the 
hell you got here.” 

Rastus gulped and rose to his 
knees. “You see, it was like this, 
boss,” he stammered. “I was look- 
in' for Mathilde. Dat cat, she run 
me wild. She sneaks into the re- 
frigerator all the time. I jus’ can’t 
trust her no place. So when she 
turned up missin’ — ” 

He struggled to his feet, and as he 
did so a bottle slipped from his 
pocket, smashed to bits on the metal 
floor. Pale-amber liquor ran among 
the fragments. 

Craig eyed the shattered glass. 
“So you were hunting Mathilde, eh?” 
Rastus slumped on the bunk, put 
his head in his hands. “Ain’t no use 
lyin’ to you, boss,” he acknowledged. 
“Never gets away with it. I was 
havin' me a drink. Just a little nip. 
And I fell asleep.” 

“You hid the bottle you swiped 
from Creepy in the jumper,” de- 
clared Craig flatly, “and you drank 
yourself to sleep.” 

“Can’t seem to help it,” Rastus 
moaned. “OF debbit’s got me. Can’t 
keep rny hands off of a bottle, some- 
how. OF Mercury, he done dat to 
me. OF debbil planet. Nothin’ as 



it should be. OF Man Sun pullin’ 
the innards out of space. Playin’ 
around with things until they ain’t 
the same — ” 

Craig nodded, almost sympatheti- 
cally. ’That wa# the hell of it. Noth- 
ing ever was the same on Mercury. 
Because of the Sun’s tremendous 
mass, light was bent, space was 
warped and eternally threatening to 
shift, basic law’s required modifica- 
tion. The power of two magnets 
would not always be the same, the 
attraction between two electrical 
charges would be changed. And the 
worst of it was that a modification 
which stood one minute would not 
stand the next. 

“Where are we goin’ now, boss?” 
“We’re going out to the space 
warp that Knut found,” said Craig. 
“And don’t think for a minute I’ll 
turn around and take you back. You 
got yourself into this, remember.” 
Rastus’ eyes batted rapidly, and 
his tongue ran around his lips. “You 
said the warp, boss? Did I hear you 
right? The warp?” 

Craig didn’t answer. He swung 
back to his seat, started the jumper 
once again. 

Rastus was staring out one of the 
side ports. “There’s a Candle fol- 
lowin’ us,” he announced. “Big blue 
feller. Skippin’ along right with us 
all the time.” 

“Nothing funny in that,” said 
Craig. “They often follow us. 
Whole herds of them.” 

“Only one this time,” said Rastus. 
“Big blue feller.” 

Craig glanced at the notation of 
the space warp’s location. Only a 
few miles distant. He was almost 
there. 

There was nothing to indicate 
what the warp might be, although 
the instruments picked it up and 



66 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



charted it as he drew near. Perhaps 
if a man stood at just the right an- 
gle he might detect a certain shim- 
mer, a certain strangeness, as if he 
were looking into a wavy mirror. 
But otherwise there probably would 
be nothing pointing to its presence. 
Hard to know just where one 
stopped or started. Hard to keep 
from walking into one, even with in- 
struments. 

Curt shivered as he thought of 
the spacemen who had walked into 
just such warps in the early days. 
Daring mariners of space who had 
ventured to land their ships on the 
Sunward side, had dared to take 
short excursions in their old-type 
space suit. Most of them had died, 
blasted by the radiations spewed out 
by the Sun, literally cooked to death. 
Others had walked across the plain 
and disappeared. They had walked 
into the warps and disappeared as if 
they had melted into thin air. Al- 
though, of course, there wasn’t any 
air to melt into — hadn’t been for 
many million years. 

On this world, all free elements 
long ago had disappeared. Those 
elements that remained, except pos- 
sibly far underground, were locked 
so stubbornly in combination that it 
was impossible to blast them free in 
any appreciable quantity. That was 



why liquid air was carted clear from 
Venus. 

The tracks in the dust and rubble 
made by Knut’s machine were 
plainly visible, and Craig followed 
them. The jumper topped a slight 
rise and dipped into a slight depres- 
sion. And in the center of the de- 
pression was a queer shifting of light 
and dark, as if one were looking into 
a tricky mirror. 

That was the space warp! 

Craig glanced at the instruments 
and caught his breath. Here was a 
space warp that was really big. Still 
following the tracks of Knut’s ma- 
chine, he crept down into the hollow, 
swinging closer and closer to that 
shifting, almost invisible blotch that 
marked the warp. 

“Golly!” gasped Rastus, and Craig 
knew the Negro was beside him, for 
he felt his breath upon his neck. 

Here Knut’s machine had stopped, 
and here Knut had gotten out to 
carry the instruments nearer, the 
blotchy tracks of his space suit like 
furrows through the powdered soil. 
And there he had come back. And 
stopped and gone forward again. 
And there — 

Craig jerked the jumper to a halt, 
stared in amazement and horror 
through the filter shield. Then, the 
breath sobbing in his throat, he 




MASQUERADE 



67 



leaped from the seat, scrambled fran- 
tically for a space suit. 

Outside the car, he approached the 
dark shape huddled on the ground. 
Slowly he moved nearer, the hands 
of fear clutching at his heart. Be- 
side the shape he stopped and looked 
down. Heat and radiation had got- 
ten in their work, shriveling, blast- 
ing, desiccating — but there could be 
no doubt. 

Staring up at him from where it 
lay was the dead face of Knut An- 
derson! 

Craig straightened up and looked 
around. Candles danced upon the 
ridges, swirling and jostling, silent 
watchers of his grim discovery. The 
one lone blue Candle, bigger than 
the rest, had followed the machine 
into the hollow, was only a few rods 
away, rolling restlessly to and fro. 

Knut had said something was 
funny — had shouted it, his voice 
raspy and battered by the screaming 
of powerful radiations. Or had that 
been Knut? Had Knut already died 
when that message came through? 

Craig glanced back at the sand, 
the blood pounding in his temples. 
Had the Candles been responsible for 
this? And if they were, why was he 
unmolested, with hundreds dancing 
on the ridge? 

And if this was Knut, with dead 
eyes staring at the black of space, 
who was the other one — the one who 
came back? 

Candles masquerading as human 
beings? Was that possible? Mimics 
the Candles were — but hardly as 
good as that. There was always 
something wrong with their mimicry 
— something ludicrously wrong. 

He remembered now the look in 
the eyes of the returned Knut — that 
chilly, deadly look — the kind of look 
one sometimes sees in the eyes of 



ruthless men. A look that had sent 
cold chills chasing up his spine. 

And Knut, who was no match for 
Creepy at checkers, but who thought 
he was because Creepy let him win 
at regular intervals, had taken six 
games straight. 

Craig looked back at the jumper 
again, saw the frightened face of 
Rastus pressed against the filter 
shield. The Candles still danced 
upon the hills, but the big blue one 
was gone. 

Some subtle warning, a nasty lit- 
tle feeling between his shoulder 
blades, made Craig spin around to 
face the warp. Just in front of the 
warp stood a man, and for a moment 
Craig stared at him, frozen, speech- 
less, unable to move. 

For the man who stood in front of 
him, not more than forty feet away , 
was Curt Craig! 

Feature for feature, line for line, 
that man was himself. A second 
Curt Craig. As if he had rounded a 
corner and met himself coming back. 

Bewilderment roared through 
Craig’s brain, a baffling bewilder- 
ment. He took a quick step forward, 
then stopped. For the bewilderment 
suddenly was edged with fear, a 
knifelike sense of danger. 

The man raised a hand and beck- 
oned, but Craig stayed rooted where 
he stood, tried to reason with his 
muddled brain. It wasn’t a reflec- 
tion, for if it had been a reflection it 
would have shown him in a space 
suit, and this man stood without a 
space suit. And if it were a real 
man, it wouldn’t be standing there 
exposed to the madness of the Sun. 
Such a thing would have spelled sure 
and sudden death. 

Forty feet away — and yet within 
that forty feet, perhaps very close, 
the power of the warp might reach 
out, might entangle any man who 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



crossed that unseen deadline. The 
warp was moving, at a few feet an 
hour, and this spot where he now 
stood, with Knut's dead body at his 
feet, had a few short hours ago been 
within the limit of the warp’s influ- 
ence. 

The man stepped forward, and as 
he did, Craig stepped back, his 
hands dropping to the gun butts. 
But with the guns half out he 
stopped, for the man had disap- 
peared. Had simply vanished. 
There had been no puff of smoke, no 
preliminary shimmering as of matter 
breaking down. The man just sim- 
ply wasn’t there. But in his place 
was the big blue Candle, rocking to 
and fro. 

( old sweat broke out upon Craig’s 
forehead and trickled down his face. 
For he knew he had trodden very 
close to death — perhaps to some- 
thing even worse than death. Wildly 
he swung about, raced for the pud- 
dle jumper, wrenched the door open, 
hurled himself at the controls. 

Rastus wailed at him. “What’s 
the matter, boss?” 

“We have to get back to the cen- 
ter,” yelled Craig. “Old Creepy is 
back there all alone! Lord knows 
what has happened to him — what 
will happen to him.” 

“But, boss,” yipped Rastus, 
“what’s the matter. Who was back 
there on the ground?” 

“That was Knut,” said Craig. 
“But Mr. Knut is back there at 
the center, boss. I know'. I seen 
him with my own eyes.” 

“Knut isn’t at the center,” Craig 
snapped. “Knut is dead out there 
by the warp. The thing that’s at the 
center is a Candle, masquerading as 
Knut!” 

Craig drove like a madman, the 
cold claws of fear hovering over him. 



Twice he almost met disaster, once 
when the jumper bucked through a 
deep drift of dust, again when it 
rocketed through a pool of molten 
tin. 

“But them Candles can’t do that 
nohow,” argued Rastus. “They can’t 
get nothing right. Every time they 
try to be a thing they always get it 
wrong.” 

“How do you know that?” 
snapped Craig. “How do you know 
they couldn’t if they tried? And if 
they could and wanted to use it 
against us, do you think they would 
let us see them do it? Through all 
these years they have done their best 
to make us lower our guard. They 
have tried to make us believe they 
were nothing but a gang of good- 
natured clowns. That, my boy, is 
super-plus psychology.” 

“But why?” demanded Rastus. 
“Why would they want to do it? 
We ain’t never hurt them.” 

“Ask me another one," said Craig 
grimly. “The best answer is that 
we don’t know them. They might 
have a dozen reasons — reasons we 
couldn’t understand. Reasons no 
human being could understand be- 
cause they wouldn't tally with the 
things w r e know.” 

Craig gripped the wheel hard and 
slammed the jumper up an incline 
slippery with dust. 

Damn it, the thing that had come 
back as Knut was Knut. It knew 
the things Knut knew, it acted like 
Knut. It had his mannerisms, it 
talked in his voice, it actually seemed 
to think the way Knut would think. 

What could a man — what could 
mankind do against a thing like 
that? How could it separate the 
original from the duplicate? How 
would it know its own? 

The thing that had come back to 



MASQUERADE 



69 



the Center had beaten Creepy at 
checkers. Creepy had led Knut to 
believe he was the old man’s equal 
at the game, although Creepy knew 
he could beat Knut at any time he 
chose. But Knut didn’t know that 
— and the thing masquerading as 
Knut didn’t know it. So it had sat 
down and beaten Creepy six games 
hand-running, to the old man’s hor- 
ror and dismay. 

Did that mean anything or not? 
Craig groaned and tried to get 
another ounce of speed out of the 
jumper. 

“It was that old blue jigger,” said 
Rastus. “He was sashaying all 
around, and then he disappeared’.” 
Craig nodded. “He was in the 
warp. Apparently the Candles are 
able to alter their electronic struc- 
tures so they may exist within the 
warp. They lured Knut into the 
warp by posing as human beings, 
arousing his curiosity, and when he 
stepped into its influence it opened 
the way for their attack. They can’t 
get at us inside a suit, you see, be- 
cause a suit is a photocell, and they 
are energy, and in a game of that 
sort, the cell wins every time. 

“That’s what they tried to do with 
me. Lord knows what the warp 
would have done if I’d stepped into 
it, but undoubtedly it would have 
made me vulnerable in the fourth di- 
mension or in some other w T ay. That 
would have been all they needed.” 
Rastus’ eyes strayed to the litter 
of glass on the floor by the bunk. 
“Sho’ wish I had me a snort of red- 
eye,” he mourned. “Sho’ could do 
with a little stimulus.” 

“It was clever of them,” Craig 
said. “A Trojan horse method of 
attack. First they got Knut, and 
next they tried to get me, and with 
two of them in the Center it would 



not have been so hard to have gotten 
you and Creepy.” 

He slapped the wheel a vicious 
stroke, venting his anger. 

“And the beauty of it was that 
no one would have known. The oxy- 
gen ship could have come from 
Venus and the men on board would 
never have been the wiser, for they 
would have met things that seemed 
like all four of us. No one would 
have guessed. They would have had 
time — plenty of time — to do any- 
thing they planned.” 

“What you figure they was aimin’ 
to do, boss?” queried Rastus. “Fig- 
ure maybe they meant to blow up 
that ol’ plant?” 

“I don’t know, Rastus. How could 
I know? If they were human be- 
ings, I could make a guess, because 
I could put myself in their shoes and 
try to think the way they did. But 
with the Candles you can’t do that. 
You can’t do anything with the Can- 
dles, because you don’t know what 
they are.” 

“You aimin’ to raise hell with dem 
Candles, boss?” 

“With what?” snapped Craig. 
“Just give me a razor,” exulted 
Rastus. “Maybe two razors, one for 
each han’. I’se a powerful danger- 
ous man with a razor blade.” 

“It’ll take more than razors,” said 
Craig. “Mare than our energy guns, 
for those things are energy. We 
could blast them with everything we 
had, and they’d just soak it up and 
laugh at us and ask for more.” 

He skidded the jumper around a 
ravine head, slashed across the des- 
ert. “First thing,” he declared, “is 
to find the one that’s masquerading 
as Knut. Find him and then figure 
out what to do with him.” 

But finding the Knut Candle was 
easier said than done. Craig, Creepy 



70 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



and Rastus, clad in space suits, stood 
in the kitchen at the center. 

“By cracky,” said Creepy, “he 
must be here somewhere. He must 
have found him an extra-special 
hide-out that we have overlooked.” 
Craig shook his head. “We 
haven’t overlooked him. Creepy. 
We’ve searched this place from stem 
to stern. There isn’t a crack where 
he could hide.” 

“Maybe,” suggested Creepy, “he 
figured the jig was up and took it 
on the lam. Maybe he scrammed 
out the lock when I was up there 
guarding that control room.” 

“Maybe,” agreed Craig. “I had 
been thinking of that. He smashed 
the radio — that much w r e know. He 
was afraid that we might call for 
help, and that means he may have 
had a plan. Even now he may be 
carrying out that plan.” 

The Center was silent, filled with 
those tiny sounds that only serve to 
emphasize and deepen a silence. The 
faint cluck-cluck of the machines on 
the floor below', the hissing and dis- 
tant chortling of the atmosphere 
mixer, the chuckling of the water 
synthesizer. 

“Dang him,” snorted Creepy, “I 
knew he couldn’t do it. I knew Knut 
couldn’t beat me at checkers hon- 
est—” 

From the refrigerator came a fran- 
tic sound. “Me-ow — me-ow-ow-ow,” 
it wailed. 

Rastus leaped for the refrigerator 
door, grabbing a broom as he went. 
“It’s that Mathilde cat again,” he 
yelled. “She’s always sneakin’ in on 
me. Every time my back is turned.” 
He brandished the broom and ad- 
dressed the door. “You jus’ wait. 
I’ll sure work you over w'ith this here 
broom. I’ll plaster you—” 

But Craig had leaped forward, 
snatched the Negro’s hand away 



from the door lever. “Wait!” he 
shouted. 

Mathilde yodeled pitifully. 

“But, boss, that Mathilde cat. — ” 

“Maybe it isn’t Mathilde,” Craig 
rasped grimly. 

From the doorway leading out into 
the corridor came a low r purring rum- 
ble. The three men whirled about. 
Mathilde was standing across the 
threshold, rubbing with arched back 
against the jamb, plumed tail wav- 
ing. Front inside the refrigerator 
came a scream of savage feline fury. 

Rastus’ eyes were popping and the 
broom clattered to the floor. “But, 
boss,” he shrieked, “there’s only one 
Mathilde!” 

“Of course, there’s only one Ma- 
thilde,” snapped Craig. “One of 
these is her. The other is Knut, or 
the thing that w'as Knut.” 

The lock signal rang shrilly, and 
Craig stepped swiftly to a port, 
flipped the shutter up. 

“It’s Page,” he shouted. “Page is 
back again!” 

He turned from the port, face 
twisted in disbelief. Page had gone 
out five hours before — without oxy- 
gen. Yet here he was, back again. 
No man could live for over four 
hours without oxygen. 

Craig’s eyes hardened, and fur- 
rows came between his brows. 
“Creepy,” he said suddenly, “you 
open the inner lock. You, Rastus, 
pick up that cat. Don’t let her get 
away.” 

Rastus backed off, eyes wide in 
terror. 

“Pick her up,” commanded Craig 
sharply, “Hang onto her.” 

“But, boss, she — ” 

“Pick her up, I say!” 

Creepy was shuffling down the 
ramp to the lock. Slowly Rastus 
moved forward, clumsily reached 
down and scooped up Mathilde, 



MASQUERADE 



71 



Mathilde purred loudly, dabbing at 
his suit-clad fingers with dainty 
paws. 

Page stepped out of the juniper 
and strode across the garage toward 
Craig, his boot heels ringing on the 
floor. 

From behind the space-suit visor, 
Craig regarded him angrily. “You 
disobeyed my orders,” he snapped. 
“You went out and caught some 
Candles.” 

“Nothing to it, Captain Craig,” 
said Page. “Docile as so many kit- 
tens. Make splendid pets.” 

He whistled sharply, and from the 
open door of the jumper rolled three 
Candles, a red one, a green one, a 
yellow one. Ranged in a row, they 
lay just outside the jumper, rolling 
back and forth. 

Craig regarded them appraisingly. 

“Cute little devils,” ^aid Page 
good-naturedly. 

“And just the right number,” said 
Craig. 

Page started, but quickly regained 
his composure. “Yes, I think so, too. 
I’ll teach them a routine, of course, 
but I suppose the audience reactions 
will bust that all to hell once they 
get on the stage.” 

Craig moved to the rack of oxy- 
gen tanks and snapped up the lid. 



“There’s just one thing I can’t un- 
derstand,” he said. “I warned you 
you couldn’t get into this rack. And 
I warned you that without oxygen 
you’d die. And yet here you are.” 

Page laughed. “I had some oxy- 
gen hid out, captain. I anticipated 
something just like that.” 

Craig lifted one of the tanks from 
the rack, held it in his arms. “You’re 
a liar. Page,” he said calmly. “You 
didn’t have any other oxygen. You 
didn’t need any. A man would die 
if he went out there without oxygen 
— die horribly. But you wouldn’t — 
because you aren’t a man!” 

Page stepped swiftly back, but 
Craig cried out warningly. Page 
stopped, as if frozen to the floor, his 
eyes on the oxygen tank. Craig’s 
finger grasped the valve control. 

“One move out of you,” he warned 
grimly, “and I’ll let you have it. You 
know what it is, of course. Liquid 
oxygen, pressure of two hundred at- 
mospheres. Colder than the hinges 
of space.” 

Craig grinned ferociously. “A dose 
of that would play hell with your 
metabolism, wouldn’t it? Tough 
enough to keep going here in the 
dome. You Candles have lived out 
there on the surface too long. You 
need a lot of energy, and there isn’t 
much energy here. We have to 




Don’t cough in public places. Carry with yon 
• box of delicious Smith Brothers Cough 
Drops. (Black or Menthol, 5C) 

Smith Bros. Cough Drops are the 
only drops containing VITAMIN A 

Vitamin A (Carotene) raises the resistance of 
mucous membranes of nose and throat to 
cold infections, when lack of resist- 
ance is due to Vitamin A deficiency. 





7 * 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



screen it out or we would die our- 
selves. And there’s a damn sight less 
energy in liquid oxygen. You met 
your own environment, all right; you 
even spread that environment pretty 
wide, but there’s a limit to it.” 

“You’d be talking a different 
tune,” Page declared bitterly, “if it 
weren’t for those space suits.” 

“Sort of crossed you up, didn’t 
they," said Craig. “We’re wearing 
them because we were tracking down 
a pal of yours. I think lie’s in the 
refrigerator.” 

“A pal of mine — in a refrigera- 
tor?” 

“He’s the one that came back as 
Knot,” said Craig, “and he turned 
into Mathilde when he knew we were 
hunting for him. But he did the job 
too well. He was almost more Ma- 
thilde than he was Candle. So he 
sneaked into the refrigerator. And 
he doesn't like it.” 

Page's shoulders sagged. For a 
moment his features seemed to blur, 
then snapped back into rigid lines 
again. 

“The answer is that you do the 
job too well,” said Craig. “Right now 
you yourself are more Page than 
Candle, more man than thing of en- 
ergy.” 

“We shouldn’t have tried it,” said 
Page. “We should have waited un- 
til there was someone in your place. 
You were too frank in your opinion 
of us. You held none of the amused 
contempt so many of the others held. 
I told them they should wait, but a 
man named Page got caught in a 
space warp — ” 

Craig nodded. “I understand. An 
opportunity you simply couldn’t 
miss. Ordinarily we’re pretty hard 
to get at. You can’t fight photo- 
cells. But you should strive for 
more convincing stories. That yarn 
of yours about capturing Candles — ” 



“But Page came out for that pur- 
pose,” insisted the pseudo Page. “Of 
course, he woidd have failed. But, 
after all, it was poetic justice.” 

“It was clever of you,” Craig said 
softly. “More clever than you 
thought. Bringing your side-kicks in 
here, pretending you had captured 
them, waiting until we were off our 
guard.” 

“Look,” said Page, “we know 
when we are licked. What are you 
going to do?” 

“We’ll turn loose the one in the 
refrigerator,” Craig told him. “Then 
we’ll open up the locks and you can 
g°-” 

“And if we don’t want to go?” 

“We’d turn loose the liquid oxy- 
gen,” said Craig. “We have vats of 
the stuff upstairs. We can close off 
this room, you know, turn it into a 
howling hell. You couldn’t live 
through it. You’d starve for en- 
ergy." 

From the kitchen came a hid- 
eous uproar, a sound that suggested 
a roll of barbed wire galloping 
around a tin roof. The bedlam was 
punctuated by yelps and howls from 
Rastus. 

Creepy, who had been standing 
by the lock, started forward, but 
Craig, never lifting an eye from 
Page, waved him back. 

Down the ramp from the kitchen 
came a swirling ball of fur, and after 
it came Rastus, whaling lustily with 
his broom. The ball of fur sepa- 
rated, became two identical cats, 
tails five times normal size, backs 
bristling, eyes glowing with green 
fury. 

“Boss, I jus’ got tired of holding 
Mathilde — ” Rastus panted. 

“I know,” said Craig. “So you 
chucked her into the refrigerator 
with the other cat.” 



MASQUERADE 



78 



“I sho’ did,” confessed Rastus, 
“and hell busted loose right under- 
neath my nose.” 

“All right,” snapped Craig. “Now, 
Page, if you’ll tell us which one of 
those is yours — ” 

Page spoke sharply and one of the 
cats melted and flowed. Its outlines 
blurred and it became a Candle, a 
tiny, pale-pink Candle. 

Mathilde let out one soul-wrench- 
ing shriek and fled. 

“Page,” said Craig, “we’ve never 
wanted trouble. If you are willing, 
we’d like to be your friends. Isn’t 
there some way?” 

Page shook his head. “No, cap- 
tain. We’re poles apart. I and you 
have talked here, but we’ve talked 
as man to man rather than as a man 
and a person of my race. Our differ- 
ences are too great, our minds too 
far apart.” 

He hesitated, almost stammering. 
“You’re a good egg, Craig. You 
should have been a Candle.” 

“Creepy,” said Craig, “open up 
the lock.” 

Page turned to go, but Craig 
called him back. “Just one thing 
more. A personal favor. Could you 
tell me what’s at the bottom of 
this?” 

“It’s hard to explain,” said Page. 
“You see, my friend, it’s a matter of 
culture. That isn’t exactly the word, 
but it’s the nearest I can express it 
in your language. 

“Before you came we had a cul- 
ture, a way of life, a way of thought, 
that was distinctly our own. We 
didn’t develop the way you devel- 
oped, we missed this crude, prelimi- 
nary civilization you are passing 
through. We started at a point you 
won’t reach for another million 
years. 

“We had a goal, an ideal, a place 
we were heading for. And we were 
making progress. I can’t explain it, 



for — well, there just are no words 
for it. And then you came along — ” 

“I think I know 7 ,” said Craig. “We 
are a disturbing influence. We have 
upset your culture, your way of 
thought. Our thoughts intrude upon 
you and you see your civilization 
turning into a troupe of mimics, ab- 
sorbing alien ideas, alien ways.” 

He stared at Page. "But isn’t 
there a way? Damn it, do we have 
to fight about this?” 

But even as he spoke, he knew 
there was no way. The long role of 
Terrestrial history recorded hun- 
dreds of such wars as this — wars 
fought over forms of faith, over ter- 
minology of religion, over ideologies, 
over cultures. And the ones who 
fought those wars were members of 
the same race — not members of two 
races separated by different origins, 
by different metabolisms, by differ- 
ent minds. 

“No,” he said, “there is no way. 
Some day, perhaps, we will be gone. 
Some day we will find another and 
a cheaper source of power and you 
will be left in peace. Until that day 
— ” He left the words unspoken. 

Page turned away, headed for the 
lock, followed by the three big Can- 
dles and the little pink one. 

Ranged together at the port, the 
three Terrestrials watched the Can- 
dles come out of the lock. Page was 
still in the form of a man, but as he 
w'alked aw ay the form ran together 
and puddled down until he was a 
sphere. 

Creepy cackled at Craig's elbow. 
“Bjr cracky,” he yelped, “he was a 
purple one!” 

Cbaig sat at his desk, writing his 
report to the Solar power board, his 
pen traveling rapidly over the paper: 

— they wailed for five hundred years be- 
fore they aeted. Perhaps this was merely 



74 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



caution or in the hope they might find a 
better way. Or it may be that time has a 
different value for them than it has for us. 
In an existence which stretches into 
eternity, time would have but little value. 

For all those five hundred years they 
have watched and studied us. They have 
read our minds, absorbed our thoughts, 
dug out our knowledge, soaked up our per- 
sonalities. Perhaps they know us better 
than we know ourselves. Whether their 
crude mimicry of our thoughts is merely a 
clever ruse to make us think they are harm- 
less or whether it reflects differing degrees of 
the art of mimicry — the difference between 
a cartoon and a masterpiece of painting— I 
cannot say. I cannot even guess. 

Heretofore we have never given thought 
to protect ourselves against them, for we 
have considered them, in general, as amus- 
ing entities and little cdse. Whether or not 
the cat in the refrigerator was the Candle 
or Mathilde I do not know, but it was the 
cat in the refrigerator that gave me the 
idea of using liquid oxygen. Undoubtedly 
there are better ways. Anything that 
would swiftly deprive them of energy would 
serve. Convinced they will try again, even 
if they have to wait another five hundred 
years, I urgently suggest — 

He stopped and laid down the pen. 

From the kitchen below came the 
faint clatter of pots and pans as Ras- 
tus engineered a dinner. Bellowed 
snatches of unmusical song, sand- 
wiched between the clatter of uten- 
sils, floated up the ramp: 

“ Chicken in de bread pan, 

Kickin' up de dough — ” 

The wastebasket in the corner 
moved slightly and Mathilde slunk 
out, tail at half mast. With a look 
of contempt at Craig, she stalked to 
the door and down the ramp. 

Creepy was tuning up his fiddle, 
but only half-heartedly. Creepy felt 
badly about Knot. Despite their 
checker arguments, the two had been 
good friends. 

Craig considered the things he’d 
have to do. He’d have to go out and 
bring in Knot’s body, ship it back to 



Earth for burial. But first he was 
going to sleep. Lord, how he needed 
sleep! 

He picked up the pen and pro- 
ceeded with his writing: 

— that every effort be bent to the devel- 
opment of some convenient weapon to be 
used against them. But to be used only in 
defense. A program of extermination, such 
as has been carried out on other planets, is 
unthinkable. 

To do this it will be necessary that we 
study them even as they have studied us. 
Before we can fight them we must know 
them. For the next time their method of 
attack undoubtedly will be different. 

Likewise we must develop a test, to be 
applied to every person before entering the 
Center, that will reveal whether he is a Can- 
dle or a man. 

And, lastly, every effort should be made 
to develop some other source of universal 
power against the day when Mercury may 
become inaccessible to us. 

He reread the report and put it 
down. 

“They won’t like that,” he told 
himself. “Especially that last para- 
graph. But we have to face the 
truth.” 

Rastus’ voice rose shrilly. “You, 
Mathilde! You get out of there! 
Can’t turn my back but you're in 
that icebox — ” 

A broom thudded with a whack. 

There was no sound from the con- 
trol room. Creepy apparently had 
put away his fiddle. Probably didn’t 
have the heart to play it. 

For a long time Craig sat at his 
desk, thinking. Then he arose and 
went to the port. 

Outside, on the bitter plains of 
Mercury, the Candles had paired off, 
two and two, were monstrous dice, 
rolling in the dust. As far as the 
eye could see, the plains were filled 
with galloping dominos. 

And every pair, at every toss, were 
rolling sevens! 



THE END. 




POKER fflCE 

By Theodore Sturgeon 

"Face" was a remarkable poker player. Even mere remarkable than 
his fellow players thought. It wasn't just the way he stacked decks — 

Illustrated by R. Isip 

We all had to get lip early that funny little guy from the account- 
morning, and we still hadn’t sense ing department they called Face 
enough to get up from around that to make a foursome with the three 
poker table. We’d called in that of us. It had been nip and tuck 



78 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



from nine o’clock on — he played a 
nice game of stud. By one in the 
morning we had all lost six weeks’ 
pay and won it back again, one, two 
bucks more or less, and all of us 
were a little reluctant to go in the 
hole. We had a two-bit straight bet 
— a nice way for the lucky man to 
clean up quickly so that everyone 
could go home. But tonight there 
was no one lucky man, and when 
Harry jokingly bet a nickel on a 
pair of fours and Delehanty took 
him up on it, the game degenerated 
into penny-ante. After a while we 
forgot whose deal it was and sat 
around just batting the breeze. 

“Screwy game,” said Delehanty. 
“What's the use of squattin’ here all 
this time just to break even? Must 
be your influence. Face. Never hap- 
pened before. We generally hand 
all our money over to Jack here 
after four deals. Hey, Jack?’’ 

I grinned. “The game still owes 
me plenty, bud,” I said. “But I 
think you’re right about Face. I 
don’t know if you noticed it, but 
damn if that winning didn’t go right 
around behind the deal — me, you. 
Face, Harry, me again. If I won 
two, everyone else would win two.” 

Face raised an eyebrow ridge be- 
cause he hadn’t any eyebrows. 
There wasn’t anything particularly 
remarkable about his features ex- 
cept that they were absolutely with- 
out hair. The others carried an a. m. 
stubble, but his face gleamed nak- 
edly, half luminous. He'd been a 
last choice, but a pretty good one. 
He said little, watched everyone 
closely and casually, and seemed like 
a pretty nice guy. “Noticed that, 
did you?” he asked. His voice was 
a very full tenor. 

“That’s right,” said Harry. 
“How’s about it. Face? What is 
this power you have over poker?” 



“Oh, just one of those things you 
pick up,” he said. 

Delehanty laughed outright. 
“Listen at that,” he said. “He’s like 
the ol’ mountain climber who saw a 
volcano erupting in the range he’d 
scaled the day before. ‘By damn,’ 
he says, ‘why can’t I be careful 
where I spit?’ ” 

Everybody laughed but Face. 
“You think it just happened? 
Would you like to see it happen 
again?” 

That stopped the hilarity. We 
looked at him queerly. Harry said, 
“What’s the dope?” 

“Play with chips,” said Face. 
“No monej', no hard feelings. If 
you like, I won’t touch the cards. 
Just to make it easy. 1 11 put it this 
way. Deal out four hands of stud. 
Jack’ll win the first with three 
threes. Delehanty next with three 
fours. Me next with three fives. 
Harry next with three sixes. Each 
three-spread will come out hearts, 
diamonds, clubs, in that order. You, 
Delehanty, start the deal. Go on — 
shuffle them all you like.” 

Delehanty was a little popeyed. 
“You wouldn’t want to make a lit- 
tle bet on that, would you?” he 
breathed. 

“I w r ould not. I don’t want to 
take your money that way. It 
would be like picking pockets.” 

“You’re bats. Face,” I said. 
“There’s so little chance of a shuf- 
fled deck coming out that way that 
you might as well call it impossible.” 

“Try it,” said Face quietly. 

Delehanty counted the cards 
carefully, shuffled at least fifteen 
times with his very efficient gam- 
bler’s riffle, and dealt around 
quickly. The cards flapped down in 
front of me — a jack face down, a 
six, and then — three threes; hearts, 
diamonds, clubs, in that order. No- 



POKER FACE 



77 



body said anything for a long time. 

Finally, “Jack’s got it,” Harry 
breathed. 

“Let me see that deck,” snapped 
Harry. He swept it up, spread it 
out in his hands. “Seems 0. K.,” he 
said slowly, and turned to Face. 

“Your deal,” said Face vvoodenly. 

Harry dealt quickly. I said, 
“Delehanty’s s'posed to be next with 
three fours — right?” Yeah — right! 
Three fours lay in front of Dele- 
hanty. It was to much — cards 
shouldn't act that way. Wordlessly 
I reached for the cards, gathered 
them up, pitched them back over 
my shoulder. “Break out a new 
deck,” I said. “Your deal, Face.” 

“Let Delebanty deal for me,” said 
Face. 

Delehanty dealt again, clumsily 
this time, for his hands trembled. 
That didn’t matter — there were still 
three fives smiling up at Face when 
he was through. 

“Your deal,” whispered Harry to 
me, and turned half away from the 
table. 

I took up the cards. I spent three 
solid minutes shuffling them. I had 
Harry cut them and then cut them 
again myself and then passed them 
to Delehanty for another cut. I 
dealt four hands, and Harry’s was 
the winning hand, with three sixes 
— hearts, diamonds, clubs. 

Delehanty’s eyes were almost as 
big now as his ears. He said, 
“Heaven. All. Might. Tea.” and 
rested his chin in his hands. I 
thought I was going to cry or some- 
thing. 

“Well?” said Face. 

“Were we playing poker with this 
guy?” Harry asked no one in par- 
ticular. 

When, by a great deal of hard 
searching, I found my voice again, 
I asked Face, “Hey, do you do that 
just any time you feel like it, or does 



it come over you at odd moments?” 

Face laughed. “Any time,” he 
said. “Want to see a really pretty 
one? Shuffle and deal out thirteen 
cards to each of us, face down. Then 
look them over.” 

I gave him a long look and began 
to shuffle. Then I dealt. I think 
we were all a little afraid to pick up 
our cards. I know that when I 
looked at mine I felt as if someone 
had belted me in the teeth with a 
night stick. I had thirteen cards, 
and they were all spades. I looked 
around the table. Delehanty had 
diamonds. Face had hearts. Harry 
had clubs. 

You could have heard a bedbug 
sneeze in the room until Harry be- 
gan saying, “Ah, no. Ah, no. Ah, 
no,” quietly, over and over, as if 
he were trying to tell himself some- 
thing. 

“Can they all do things like that 
where you come from?” I asked, and 
Face nodded brightly. 

“Can everyone walk where you 
come from?” he returned. “Or see, 
or hear, or think? Sure.” 

“Just where do you come from?” 
asked Harry. 

“I don’t know,” said Face. “I 
only know how I came, and I 
couldn’t explain that to you.” 

“Why not?” 

“How could you explain an inter- 
nal-combustion engine to an Aus- 
tralian bushman?” 

“You might try,” said Delehanty, 
piqued. “We’s pretty smart bush- 
men, we is.” 

“Yeah,” I chimed in. “I’m will- 
ing to allow you the brains to do 
those card tricks of yours; you ought 
to have enough savvy to put over 
an idea or two.” 

“Oh — the cards. That was easy 
enough. I felt the cards as you shuf- 
fled them.” 

“You felt with my fingers?” 



78 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“That’s right. Want proof? Jack, 
your head is itching a little on the 
right side, near the top, and you’re 
too lazy to scratch it just yet. Har- 
ry’s got a nail pushing into the third 
toe of his right foot — not very bad, 
but, it’s there. Well, what do you 
say?” 

He was right. I scratched. Harry 
shuffled his feet and said, “O. Iv., 
but what has that got to do with ar- 
ranging the cards that way? Sup- 
pose you did feel them with our 
hands — then what?” 

Face put his elbows on the table. 
“I can feel so well with your senses 
that I can catch sensations far too 
light for you to recognize. Ever see 
a gnat crawling on the back of your 
hand so lightly that you yourself 
couldn’t feel it? Well, I could. I 
can feel better with your fingers 
than you can yourself! As for ar- 
ranging the cards, that was done in 
the shuffle. You grasp half of the 
deck in each hand, bend them, let 
them flip out from under your 
thumbs. If you can control the 
pressure of each thumb carefully 
enough, you can make the right 
cards fall into the right places. You 
all shuffled at least four times; that 
made it that much easier for me.” 

Delehanty was popeyed again. 
“How did you know which cards 
were supposed to go in which 
places?” 

“Memorized their order, of 
course,” said Face. “I’ve seen that 
done in theaters even by men like 
you.” 

“So’ve I,” said Harry. “But you 
still haven’t told us how you ar- 
ranged the deal. If you’d done the 
shuffling I could see it, but — ” 

“But I did do the shuffling,” said 
Face. “I controlled that pressure of 
your thumbs.” 

“How' about the cuts?” Delehanty 



put in, feeling that at last we had 
him on the run. “When Jack dealt 
he handed the pack to Harry and 
me both to be cut.” 

“I not only controlled those cuts,” 
said Face calmly, “but I made you 
do it.” 

“Go way,” said Delehanty ag- 
gressively. “Don’t give us that. 
How’re you going to make a man 
do anything you like?” 

“Skeptical animal, aren’t you?” 
grinned Face; and Delehanty rose 
slowly, walked around the table, 
caught Harry by the shoulders and 
kissed him on both cheeks. Harry 
almost fell off his chair. Delehanty 
stood there rockily, his eyes posi- 
tively bulging. Suddenly he expec- 
torated with great violence. “What 
the dirty so and forth made me do 
that?” he wanted to know. 

“Chummy, ain’t you?” grinned 
Harry through his surprise. 

Face said, “Satisfied, Delehanty?” 

Delehanty whirled on him. 
“Why, you little — ” His fury 
switched off like a light going out. 
“Right again. Face.” He w'ent over 
and sat down. I never saw r that 
Irishman back down like that be- 
fore. 

“You made him do that?” I 
asked. 

Face regarded me gravely. “You 
doubt it?” 

We locked glances for a moment, 
and then my feet gathered under 
me. I had a perverse desire to get 
down on all fours and bark like a 
dog. It seemed the most natural 
thing in the world. I said quickly, 
“Not at all. Face, not at. all!” My 
feet relaxed. 

“You’re the damnedest fellow I 
ever saw,” said Harry. “What kind 
of a man are you, anyway?” 

“Just a plain ordinary man with 
a job,” said Face, and looked at 
Delehanty. 



POKER FACE 



79 



“So am I,” said Harry, “but I 
can’t make cards sit up and type- 
write, or big, dumb Irishers snuggle 
up to their fellowmen.” 

“Don’t let that bother you,” said 
Face. “I told you before — there’s 
nothing more remarkable in that 
than there is in walking, or seeing, 
or hearing. I was born with it, 
that’s all.” 

“You said everyone was, where 
you come from,” Harry reminded 
him. “Now spill it. Just where did 
you come from?” 

“Geographically,” said Face, “not 
very far from here. Chronologically, 
a hell of a way.” 

Harry looked over my way 
blankly. “Now what does all that 
mean?” 

“As near as I can figure out,” said 
Face, “it means just what I said. I 
come from right around here — fifty 
miles, maybe — but the place I came 
from is thirty-odd thousand years 
away.” 

“Years aivay?” I asked, by this 
time incapable of being surprised. 
“You mean ‘ago,’ don’t you?” 
“Away,” repeated Face. “I came 
along duration, not through time it- 
self.” 

“Sounds very nice,” murmured 
Delehanty to a royal flush he had 
thumbed out for himself. 



Face laughed. “Duration isn’t 
time — it parallels it. Duration is a 
dimension. A dimension is essen- 
tially a measurement along a plane 
of existence. By that I mean that 
any given object has four dimen- 
sions, and these extend finitely along 
four planes — length, width, height, 
duration. The last is no different 
from the others; nor is it any less 
tangible. You simply take it for 
granted. 

When you’re ordering a piece of 
lumber, for instance, you name its 
measurements. You say you want 
a two by six, twelve feet long. You 
don’t order its duration; you simply 
take for granted that it will extend 
long enough in that dimension to 
suit your needs. You would build 
better if you measured it as care- 
fully as you do the others, but your 
life span is too short for you to care 
that much.” 

“I think I savvy that,” said 
Harry, who had been following care- 
fully, “but what do you mean by 
saying that you came ‘along’ dura- 
tion?” 

“Again, just what I said. You 
can’t move without moving along 
the plane of a dimension. If you 
walk down the street, you move 
along its length. If you go up in 
an elevator, you move along its 





80 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



height. I came along duration.” 

“You mean you projected your- 
self into the fourth dimension?” 
asked Harry. 

“No!” Face said violently, and 
snorted. “I told you — duration is 
a dimension, not another set of di- 
mensions. Can you project your- 
self into length, or height, or into 
any one dimension? Of course not! 
The four are interdependent. That 
fourth-dimensional stuff you read is 
poppycock. There’s no mystery 
about the fourth dimension. It isn’t 
an impalpable world. It’s a basis of 
measurement.” 

I said, “What’s this business of 
your traveling along it?” 

Face spread out his hands. “As 
I said before, duration is finite. Sup- 
pose you wanted to walk from Third 
Street to Fifth Street. First you’d 
locate a sidewalk that would take 
you in the direction you were going. 
You’d follow that until it ended. 
Then you’d locate one that would 
take you from there to your destina- 
tion. Where the one stopped and 
the other started is Fourth Street. 
Now, if you want to go twenty 
blocks instead of two, you simply 
repeat that process until you get 
where you’re going. 

“Traveling along duration is ex- 
actly the same thing. Just as you 
enter a street at a certain point in 
its length, so you encounter an ob- 
ject on the street at a certain point 
in its duration. Maybe it’s near the 
beginning, maybe near the end. 
You follow it along that dimension 
— you don’t project yourself into it. 
All objects have two terminations in 
duration — inception and destruc- 
tion. You travel along an object’s 
duration until it ceases to exist be- 
side you because you have reached 
the end of it — or the beginning. 
Then you proceed to find another 
object so that you may continue in 



the same direction, exactly as you 
proceeded to find yourself another 
sidewalk in your little trek across 
town.” 

“I’ll be damned,” said Delehanty, 
“I can understand it!” 

“Me, too,” Harry said. “That 
much of it. But exactly how did 
you travel along duration? I can 
get the idea of walking beside a 
building’s length, for instance, but 
I can’t see myself walking along be- 
side . . . er . . . how long it 
lasted, if you see what I mean. Or 
do 7 see what I mean?” 

“Now you’re getting to something 
that may be a little tough to ex- 
plain,” said Face. “You have few 
expressions in your language that 
could cover it. About the clearest 
way for me to put it is this: My 
ability to travel in that particular 
direction is the result of my ability 
to perceive it. If you could only 
perceive two dimensions, length and 
breadth, you would be completely in 
the dark about the .source of an ob- 
ject which dropped on you from 
above. If you couldn’t sense the 
distance from here to the door — if 
you didn’t know the door existed, 
nor the distance to it, you wouldn’t 
be able to make the trip. I can see 
along duration as readily as you can 
see up and down a road. I can move 
along it equally readily.” 

“Do you stay in one place wdiile 
you travel duration?” I asked sud- 
denly. 

“I can. I don’t have to. though. 
You can go forward and upward 
while you curve to the left, can’t 
you? Mix ’em any way you like.” 

Harry piped up. “You say you 
came thirty thousand years. How 
is that possible? You don’t look as 
if you’re much older than I am.” 

“I’m not,” said Face, “is point of 
years existed. That is, I didn’t live 
those years. I — passed them.” 



POKER FACE 



81 



“How long did it take you?” 

Face smiled. “Your question is 
ridiculous, Harry. ‘How long’ is a 
‘durational’ term. It involves pass- 
age of time, which is a convenient 
falsehood. Time is static, objects 
mobile. I can’t explain a true state 
of affair from the basis of a false 
conception.” 

Harry shut up. I asked him 
something that had been bothering 
me. “Where did you come from. 
Face, and — why?” 

He looked at me deeply, that eye- 
brow ridge rising a trifle. “I came 
— I was sent. I came because I was 
qualified for the job. I wa-s sent be- 
cause — well, someone had to be 
sent, to restore the balance of the 
city.” 

“What city?” 

“I don’t know. It had a name, I 
suppose, but it was forgotten. 
There was no need for a name. Do 
you name your toothbrush, or your 
bed sheets, or anything else that has 
been nearly part of you all your life? 
No one ever left the city, no one 
ever arrived at it. There were other 
cities, but no one cared about them, 
where they were, who their people 
were and what they were like, and 
so on. There was no need to know. 
The city was independent and ut- 
terly self-sufficient. It was the ulti- 
mate government. It was not a 
democracy, for each individual was 
subjugated entirely to the city. But 
it was not a dictatorship as you 
know the term, for it had no dicta- 
tors. It had no governing body, as 
a matter of fact. It didn’t need one. 
It had no laws but those of habit 
and custom. It ran smoothly be- 
cause all of its internal frictions had 
been worn smooth by the action of 
centuries. It was an anarchistic so- 
ciety in the true sense of anarchism 



— society without need of govern- 
ment.” 

“That’s an impossibility,” said 
Harry, who had a reputation as a 
minor barroom sociologist. 

“I came from that city,” Face re- 
minded him gently. “Why is it im- 
possible? You must take certain 
things into account before you make 
such rash statements. Your human 
nature is against such an organiza- 
tion. Your people would be like 
lost sheep — possibly like lost wol- 
verines — under such a set-up. But 
my people w'ere not like that — not 
after centuries of breeding for the 
most desirable traits, living circum- 
scribed ways of life, thinking stereo- 
typed thoughts. Imagine it if you 
can — let me describe the life of an 
individual to you. 

“He was born when he was 
needed. He was an individual from 
a mold. He was a certain weight, 
not the thousandth of a gram more 
or less than that of any of his con- 
temporaries. He was fed the same 
food as they, slept exactly the same 
hours, learned precisely the same 
things at the same time. His pulse, 
mental powers, rate of metabolism, 
physical strength, range of vision — 
all were exactly the same as those 
of the same age. He needed no in- 
dividual attention. He fought no 
disease, because there w^as no disease 
in the city. He was fed and clothed 
and housed by machines, and he was 
taught by them and quickly learned 
the way of them. When he was 
adult he was bred. When he was 
eighteen he had been schooled for 
two hours a day for eight years. He 
then spent one year working two 
hours a day tending one of the mil- 
lions of machines that took their 
power from interstellar space and 
transmuted it into usable energies 
for the people and the structures. 
When he had finished that year he 



82 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



spent an hour each day for eight 
months in teaching the young the 
things he had observed about the 
work he had done. He gave instruc- 
tion for twenty days less each year 
for twelve years and then died be- 
cause he ceased to get fed, as there 
was nothing left for him to do. His 
body was transformed into raw ma- 
terials of various kinds, with no 
waste. There was never any waste 
in the city. 

“Now the city was divided into 
two halves, like the halves of a great 
brain. One half was dedicated to 
the supply of power, and one to ma- 
terials. There were forty-five mil- 
lion people in each half, equally di- 
vided in age and sex. The flawless 
smoothness of the city’s operation 
depended on the maintenance of 
that exact balance between supply 
and demand, manufacture and the 
means to manufacture. For every 
death there was a birth; for every 
loss there was a gain or an equal 
loss on the other side. The equation 
was kept balanced, the scales level. 
The city was permanent, inexorable, 
immortal and static.” 

“What -did they do with their 
spare time?” asked Harry. 

“They lay in their cubicles until 
they were needed.” 

“Were there no theaters, ball 
games — nothing like that?” asked 
Delehanty. 

Face shook his head. “Amuse- 
ment is for the relaxation of an im- 
perfect mind,” he said. “A mind 
that has been trained to do one 
thing and one thing only needs no 
stimulation or change of pace. Re- 
member — It wasn’t only that these 
people were educated that way and 
brought up in those surroundings. 
They were bred for those traits.” 

“Why was the city so big?” asked 
Harry. “Good gosh, a civilization 
like that doesn't mean anything. 



Why didn’t it simply degenerate 
into the machines that ruled it? 
Why keep all those humans if they 
must live like machines?” 

Face shrugged. “When the city 
was instituted, there was a popula- 
tion of that size to allow for. Then, 
it had a rigid human government, 
and there was crime and punish- 
ment and pain and happiness. They 
were disposed of in a few genera- 
tions — they were not logical, you 
see, and the city was designed on 
the philosophy that what is not 
logical is also not necessary. By 
that time the city was so steeped in 
its own traditions, there was no one 
left to make such a radical change 
as to cut down on the population. 
The city could care for that many 
— likewise it could not exist as it was 
unless it did care for that many. 
Many human offices were disposed 
of as they became unnecessary and 
automatic. One of these was that 
of controller of population. The 
machines took care of that — they 
and the unbreakable customs.” 

“Hell!” said Delehanty explo- 
sively. “1 wouldn’t go for that. 
Why didn’t the people push the 
whole thing over and get some fun 
out of life?” 

“They didn’t want it!” said Face, 
as if he were repeating a self-evident 
fact, and was surprised that he had 
to. “They had never had that sort 
of life; they never heard or read or 
saw anything of the sort. They had 
no more desire to do things like that 
than you have to play pattycake! 
They weren’t constituted to enjoy 
it. 

“You still haven’t told us why you 
left the place,” I reminded him. 

“I was coming to that. In the 
city there was a necessity for the 
pursuance of certain knowledges, as 
a safety measure against the time 



POKER FACE 



83 



when one or another of the machines 
might need rebuilding by a man who 
understood them. Now the ma- 
chines which supplied the people 
with everything from baby pap to 
muscle rubs, transportation to air- 
conditioning, naturally covered such 
a vast number of highly specialized 
fields that it was necessary to main- 
tain quite a number of men edu- 
cated along these lines. There was 
only one of these men detailed to 
each field — astronomy, astrophysics, 
biology, and so on. He learned what 
his predecessor knew and spent the 
years of his life learning what else 
he might and teaching it to the next 
in line. 

“One of these men was an anti- 
quarian named Hark Vegas, which 
is really not a name at all but a 
combination of sounds indicating a 
number. His field was history — the 
development of all about him, from 
its earliest recorded mythologies and 
beyond that to its most logical 
sources. In the interests of the city, 
he so applied himself to his work 
that he uncovered certain impon- 
derables — historical trends which 
were neither logical nor in harmony 
with the records. They were of no 
importance, perhaps, but their ex- 
istence interfered with the perfec- 
tion of his understanding. The only 
way he could untangle these unim- 
portant matters was to investigate 
them personally. And so — that is 
what he did. 

“He waited until his successor was 
thoroughly trained, so that in any 
eventuality the city would not be 
left without an antiquarian for more 
than a very little while, and he stud- 
ied carefully the records of the city's 
customs. These forbade any citi- 
zen’s leaving the city, and carefully 
described the boundaries thereof. 
They were so very old, however, 
that they neglected to stipulate the 

AST— 6 



boundaries along the duration di- 
mension, since duration perception 
was a development of only the past 
four or five thousand years. As an 
antiquarian. Hark Vegas was fa- 
miliar with the technique. He 
moved himself out along the dura- 
tion of a metallic fragment and thus 
disappeared from the city. 

“Now this unheard-of happening 
disturbed the timeless balance of the 
city, for Hark Vegas was nowhere 
to be found. Within seconds of his 
disappearance, news of it had 
reached the other half of the city, 
and the group of specialists there. 

“The matter involved me imme- 
diately for several reasons. In the 
first place, my field was — damn it, 
there’s no word for it in your lan- 
guage yet. It’s a mental science 
and has to do with time perceptions. 
At any rate, I was the only one 
whose field enabled him to reason 
where Hark Vegas had gone. Sec- 
ondly, Hark Vegas was my contem- 
porary in the other half of the city. 
We would both be replaced within 
a week, but during that week there 
would be one too manjr in my half 
of the city, one too few in his — an 
intolerable, absolutely unprece- 
dented state of affairs. There was 
only one thing to do, since I was 
qualified, and that was to find him 
and bring him back. My leaving 
would restore the balance; if I were 
successful in finding him, our return 
would not disturb it. It was the 
only thing to do, for the status quo 
had to be maintained at all costs. 
I acquired a piece of the metal he 
had used — an easy thing to do, since 
everything in the city was cata- 
logued — and came away.’’ 

Face paused to light a cigarette. 
The man smoked, I had noticed, 
with more sheer enjoyment than 
anyone I had ever met. 



84 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Well,” said Harry impatiently, 
“did you find him?” 

Face leaned back in a cloud of 
blue smoke and stared dreamily at 
the ceiling. “No,” he said. “And 
1 11 tell you why. 

“I ran into a characteristic of di- 
mensions that was so utterly simple 
that it had all but escaped me. Let 
me give you an example. How 
many sides has a cube?” 

“Six,” said Harry promptly. 

Face nodded. “Exactly. Exclud- 
ing the duration dimension, the cube 
is a three-dimensional body and has 
six sides. There are two sides as 
manifestations of each dimension. I 
think I overlooked that. You see, 
there are four dimensions, but eight 
— directions!” 

He paused, while the three of us 
knotted our brows over the concep- 
tion. “Right and left,” he said. “Up 
and down. Forward and backward 
— and ‘beginningwards’ and ‘end- 
wards’ — the two directions in the 
duration dimension!” 

Delehanty raised his head slowly. 
“You mean you — didn’t know which 
way to go?” 

“Precisely. I entered the dura- 
tional field and struck off blindly in 
the wrong direction! I went as far 
as I reasoned Hark Vegas had gone, 
and then stopped to look around. 
I found myself in such a bewilder- 
ing, uproarious, chaotic world that 
I simply hadn’t the mental equip- 
ment to cope with it. I had to re- 
treat into a deserted place and de- 
velop it. I came into your world — 
here, about eight years ago. And 
when I had begun to get the ways 
of this world, I came out of hiding 
and began my search. It ended al- 
most as soon as it had begun, for 
I stopped searching! 

“Do you know what happened to 



me? Do you realize that never be- 
fore had I seen color, or movement, 
or argument, or love, hate, noise, 
confusion, growth, death, laughter? 
Can you imagine my delighted first 
glimpses of a street fight, a traffic 
jam, a factory strike? I should have 
been horrified, perhaps — but never 
had I seen such beautiful marvels, 
such superb and profound and mov- 
ing happenings. I threw myself 
into it. I became one of you. I be- 
came an accountant, throttling 
down what powers I alone of all this 
earth possess, striving for life as a 
man on an equal footing with the 
rest of men. You can’t know my 
joy and my delight! I make a mis- 
take in my entries, and the city — ■ 
this city, does not care or suffer for 
it, but brawls on unheeding. My 
responsibilities are to myself alone, 
and I defy my cast-steel customs 
and laugh doing it. I’m living here, 
you see? Living! Go back? Hah!” 

“Colors,” I murmured. “Noise, 
and happy filth, and sorrows and 
screams. So they got you — too!” 

Face’s smile grew slowly and then 
flashed away. He stared at me like 
some alabaster-faced statue for 
nearly a full minute, and then the 
agile tendrils of his mind whipped 
out and encountered mine. We 
clutched each other thus, and the 
aura of our own forces around us 
struck two men dumb. 

“Hark Vegas,” he said woodenly, 

I nodded. 

He straightened, drew a deep 
breath, threw back his head and 
laughed. “This colossal joke,” he 
said, wuping his eyes, “was thirty- 
eight thousand years in the making. 
Pleased to meet you — Jack.” 

We left then. Harry and Dele- 
hanty can’t remember anything but 
a poker game. 



THE END. 



85 




“Sixth Column” concludes this month, and the new serial, beginning 
next month, is on hand. It’s a yarn by L. Sprague de Camp in his best and 
wackiest manner, guaranteed for grins. “The Stolen Dormouse” concerns a 
world of the future — some hundreds of years hence — in which a new Feudal 
hierarchy has been built up. The noble houses are business houses — and 
furious are the duels between the members of the houses, most carefully 
prescribed as to the proper code. A Businessman — Sir Businessman Charles, 
say — may use his duelling stick only on his equals. His Efficiency Jones, or 
Researcher Brown are in another caste altogether. 

The “dormice” incidentally, are those individuals who, having tired of 
the world as it is. have taken a nap for the next century or two. Suspended 
animation induces complications — particularly when one of the suspendees 
is stolen. 

Theodore Sturgeon has a novelette coming up, too. The tale of a man 
who played god to a homemade microcosm — and forgot that he still had to 
live and get along in his greater world himself. “Microcosmie God” intro- 
duces, incidentally, an excellent way to produce inventions in a hurry, on 
order! The Editob. 



HflfliyTICflL LflBORflTOfiy 

Because the January issue contained more than the usual number of 
stories and articles, and because the articles were rated this time as well, 
place-numbers went from 1 to 9 this time. In consequence, the score-points 
run higher than usual in the Lab this month. The first installment of 
“Sixth Column” and “The Mechanical Mice” are practically tied for first 
place, because of this, despite the difference in score-points. The results 
were: 





Story 


Author 


Score 


1. 


Sixth Column (Part I) 


Anson MacDonald 


1.7 


2. 


The Mechanical Mice 


Maurice G. Hugi 


1.9 


3 . 


The Traitor 


Kurt von Rachen 


8.35 


4. 


The Day We Celebrate 


Nelson S. Bond 


3.55 


5. 


Lost Rocket 


Manly Wade Wellman 


4.72 






The Editor. 




By Vic Phillips and Scott Roberts 



Tadics” is the military art you use when you've got 
the weapons. " Strategy " is whof’s called for when the 
other fellow has everything and you've got a pop-gun! 



Illustrated 

The radio receiver on GS42 gave 
a sudden, startled beep, then tore 
loose with the spine-chilling, high- 
pitched, broken stutter of the inter- 
planetary emergency call. Any- 



by M. llip 

where in the Solar System that call 
meant hell was popping! 

Serd Larkin jumped; reached for 
the radio controls and toned down 
the call. He punched the position 



PUTSCH 



87 



co-ordinates on the integrator keys 
of the ship’s chart. Two hairlines of 
light leaped out and intersected. 

“That’s funny! It’s coming from 
the old Landing Station, away this 
side of Venus City, But, there’s no 
one there.” 

“Sure there ain’t nobody there,” 
agreed Benny Haines, the Geological 
Survey ship’s tubby pilot. “That 
noise cornin’ in is just a couple of 
Venusian bean trees rubbin’ to- 
gether.” 

“Shut up, here’s something from 
Venus City.” Larkin brought up the 
volume, “Say! It’s Governor Allen 
again.” 

The governor’s voice surged into 
the tiny cabin. 

“Repeating orders given in trans- 
mission 369B, all ships are to report 
in to Venus City without delay.” 

Serd cut in the ship’s transmitter. 

“GS 42 , Serd Larkin, Benny 
Haines. We’ve picked up an emer- 
gency call. We’ll come in as soon 
as we’ve attended to it.” 

Followed a long pause, then Gov- 
ernor Allen’s voice came in again. It 
sounded strained and unnatural. 

“I am ordering you to report im- 
mediately without any delay, on my 
authority as governor,” he said 
stiffly. 

Benny leaned across to the trans- 
mitter mike. 

“Ordinance 141 of the Operating 
Code states that an emergency call 
takes precedence over all flying or- 
ders,” he quoted excitedly. He was 
an authority on the Operating Code. 
“So you can take your recall 
and — ” 

“We’ll be in as soon as we have 
surveyed this call,” Serd cut in hast- 

fly- 

“You are ordered to come in im- 
mediately without delay,” the gov- 
ernor repeated woodenly. There was 
no mistaking the rigid terror behind 



his stilted words. “You are or- 
dered — ” 

Serd cut him off. “Say that guy’s 
so damn scared he can’t think!” he 
stated incredulously. 

“Yeah,” agreed Benny, as he 
slammed the ship’s throttle full open. 
“He’s scared all right an’ whatever ’s 
scarin’ him don’t want us goin’ near 
the old Landing Station.” 

“That’s our next stop then. It’s 
just ahead.” 

They emerged from the tortuous, 
shattered grandeur of Ragged Pass 
into the valley of Venus City. The 
world dropped away into emptiness 
as the tremendous chasm yawned 
below them. Far across to the south 
the Magna Escarpment reared eter- 
nally vast, a titanic ridge, towering 
up thirty miles through cloud levels, 
stretching half around the planet, 
guarding the extreme south Polar 
Region. 

The little ship swung breathtak- 
ingly out over the nagged cloud con- 
tinents that veiled tremendous, un- 
guessable depths. It thundered 
westward down the great valley to- 
ward the old Landing Station. The 
station had been built, on a narrow 
ridge that crossed the valley of Venus 
City and it was here the first Earth- 
ian outpost on Venus had been es- 
tablished. 

Later, when the growth of the 
colony crowded the limited level 
space of the ridge, the entire settle- 
ment had been moved three hundred 
miles westward to a similar, more 
extensive land formation where the 
great new' headquarters of Venusian 
exploration had grown into Venus 
City. 

There was no mistaking the ver- 
dant green streak across the width of 
the valley that swung in below them. 

“Oh, boy! Look there over the 
north end of the ridge. Fight!” 
yapped Benny. 



m 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Fight. Hell it’s a pushover. 
Look at that ship go!” 

Below them a single ship was fling- 
ing itself wildly through the sky 
with incredible violence and speed. 
Three other ships, awkward and 
cumbersome by comparison, were 
doing their best to avoid the vicious 
thrusts of the attacker. It dived 
furiously through the formation and 
swept upward again. A sudden stab 
of lurid flame blasted the stern of 
one of the slow-moving ships. It 
staggered, then fell away toward the 
ridge. 

“A hit!” Serd yelled. “That guy’s 
fast! Whose side are we on?” 

“We’ve got to get that ship. The 
other three are lifeboats; they must 
have sent out that emergency call.” 
"Get it? How?” 

“Watch this,” Benny answered 
grimly. 

The little survey ship plunged 
down, coming in astern of the rising 
attacker. Benny pulled up to pan- 
cake on top of him. Serd got a mo- 
mentary glimpse of the pilot’s star- 
tled face below him. 

“Got him!” Benny snarled, then 
the ship below them vanished in a 
hurst of impossible speed. 

“He got away!” 

“That’s what you think. Look!” 
The fleeing ship screamed toward 
the jungle-draped mountainside, 
straining madly to warp its course 
away from battering destruction. 
Breathlessly the men in the survey 
ship watched the mad, careening 
flight. For a moment they thought 
it had escaped, then it ripped into 
the heavy jungle growth, smashed 
into a jutting knee of the mountain, 
blasted into a blinding incan- 
descence. All that remained was the 
thick, slow drift of white smoke 
from the smoldering jungle. 

“Boy, oh, boy, that guy sure didn’t 



learn to judge flying speed on 
Venus,” Benny muttered as he let 
his breath go. “What are those 
other ships doing?” 

“Making in at the old Landing 
Station. Let’s go down and see if 
anyone can talk sense into this busi- 
ness.” 

Benny swung the ship down in a 
tight spiral, stalled in onto the slope, 
crashing through the tangle of vines 
and light brush, which swung back, 
entirely concealing them. Serd 
swung the side door panel open and 
they climbed out. The warm, age- 
less, living stillness of Venus flowed 
patiently around them. They lis- 
tened. Far off a couple of gliding 
lizards barked raucously. 

“They landed in the open on the 
site of the old Administration Build- 
ing,” Serd said. “Let's go.” 

They emerged from the jungle. 
Thirty or more people milled about 
the damaged lifeboat, getting the 
crew out. A tall, graceful brunette 
looked tow T ard them. 

“Well, here we are,” Serd called, 
brightly. “Consider yourselves res- 
cued.” 

There was a grim twist to the girl’s 
smile. 

“Thanks, consider yourselves res- 
cued, too.” 

“What do you mean? Who are 
you people anyway? What’s this 
all about?” 

“We’re Free People,” the girl re- 
plied. “That emergency call of ours 
kept you out of Venus City and 
that’s dangerous country now.” 

Some of the instinctive friendli- 
ness went out of Serd’s eyes. He 
knew the Free People. They were 
a product of the times. Atomic en- 
ergy had given the System unlimited 
reserves of power. Work had become 
practically unnecessary, but there 
were still those who chose to do it. 
Only the Free People took advan- 



PUTSCH 



89 



tage of the situation and spent their 
time in enjoyment and travel. Those 
who worked and those who didn’t 
mutually despised each other. 

“You can start explaining any 
time,” Serd instructed coldly. “And 
make it sound good.” 

The girl's lips tightened, her eyes 
narrowed. Serd wondered what had 
made him think she looked soft. 
Now with the dull anger flaming 
from her eyes she was suddenly mag- 
nificent. Several of the men closed 
in behind her, big, competent young 
fellows, not the usual type of neu- 
rotic Free People. 

“The Centralists are in Venus 
City with weapons. They’re making 
Governor Allen call in all outlying 
ships,” the girl stated flatly. 

Serd laughed shortly. 

“Centralists? That crazy bunch 
of blue-shirted coots? Where’d you 
get your information?” 

“We get around,” the girl snapped. 
“We haven’t been stuck on one 
planet all our lives.” 

A big, heavy-shouldered, easy- 
going blond moved forward. 

“Maybe if you two quit scrapping 
we could talk this thing out," he sug- 
gested. “Your opposition here is 
Osa Lane. I’m Pader Norton and 
these others are more of the Free 
People. We’re straight from Earth. 
This business in Venus C’itv looks 
bad.” 

“What do you mean — bad?" de- 
manded Serd. “What have these 
Centralists got?” 

“Electron disruption projectors, 
powered from Earth by space-warp 
transmission.” 

“Oh — yes? That stuff’s still in 
the experimental stage.” 

“Do you know anything about the 
Centralists?” 

“I know they've been making a 
nuisance of themselves on Earth, 



parading around in their blue night- 
shirts — ” 

“They’re more than a nuisance 
now,” the girl cut in quickly. 
“They’re a menace! They’ve jumped 
the gun on this space-warp transmis- 
sion. It’s dangerous to handle, but 
they’re taking that chance. They 
maintain that Earth should be the 
center of control in the System. 
They want to make it that, and di- 
rect all activities from there. Their 
plan calls for absolute dictatorship 
over the whole Solar System. They 
think we’re taking it too easy. They 
want to rush everything." There 
was intense distaste in Osa’s voice 
as she spoke. “Space-warp trans- 
mission is just what they want. 
Their idea is to set up generators 
on Earth, convert all equipment in 
the System to electron disruption 
power and control it directly from 
their Earth base. That would give 
them absolute control.” 

“What makes this space-warp 
transmission dangerous to handle?” 
Benny asked. 

“No reliable insulation,” Pader 
replied. “Or circuit breakers. If 
they get a major equipment break- 
down, the surge back of power is 
liable to wreck everything. They’ve 
been lucky so far. They wrecked our 
spaceship, when we landed, in about 
forty-five seconds. We just got away 
in time. I guess they didn’t want 
anyone cruising about Venus warn- 
ing people. That ship you crashed 
didn't have an electron disruption 
projector on board or we’d have been 
done for.” 

Benny’s voice sliced in. 

“So what are we expected to do? 
Go clean up on these tough parties 
with a couple of cutting torches? 
What’s your line?” 

“Keeping ourselves alive was our 
first thought,” Pader Norton re- 
turned grimly. “But if these Cen- 



90 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



tralists don’t get thrown out 
promptly it’s going to be damned un- 
comfortable living in this System.” 

“All they need is one good equip- 
ment failure under high load to fin- 
ish them,” Osa said hopefully. 

Serd glanced quickly at Benny for 
confirmation. The pilot nodded. 

“O. K. What do we do?” Serd 
asked abruptly. 

“We’ll need all the ships and men 
we can get,” Pader said. “Are there 
others?” 

“There’s Doc Hallidane and his 
crew on an entomological survey 
around here somewhere, and I’m 
pretty sure Professor Lord is out 
with a ship doing botanical field 
work. If they haven’t reported to 
Venus City already, we can get them. 
Then Pete Carson’s got a crew and 
a ship full of mining equipment 
somewhere east of here on the Magna 
Escarpment.” 

“Good. Get ’em.” 

“Benny, hike back to the ship 
and see if you can raise them and 
anyone else who will answer,” Serd 
directed. 

“O. K., but I don’t think we got 
a chance,” Benny warned ominously 
and headed back for the survey ship. 

“What about defense? Wiil any- 
thing stop this electron disruption 
business or slow it down?” Serd 
asked. 

Pader Norton glanced at Osa. She 
shook her head. “Nothing, as far 
as I know. Of course it takes time 
on large masses of matter. If we 
could get inside a mountain some- 
where, it would take them a while to 
dig us out.” 

“Well, we can do that,” said Serd. 
“This old Landing Station was 
water-powered. The generating 
rooms were cut out of the moun- 
tain at the north end of the ridge 
here to save landing room and 
there’s a tunnel, that brought the 



water down, drilled about two miles 
through the middle of the moun- 
tain to a lake back in the hills to the 
north.” 

“Swell, let’s go,” Pader Norton 
nodded vigorously. Then returning 
to the Free People, “Machetes and 
cutting torches,” he directed. “Bet- 
ter bring lights, too, and shift in 
some supplies, we might be holed up 
for a while.” Then he paused. 
“Just a minute, is there another way 
out of this hole?” 

“Two or three, higher up the 
mountain. They’re construction 
tunnels that were drilled in from the 
outside.” 

With half a dozen cutting torches 
in the lead the trail melted through 
the thick brush tow T ard the north 
end of the ridge at a slow walk. They 
located the tunnel by following the 
foundations of the old Administra- 
tion Building. They were clearing 
aw’ay around the entrance when 
Benny caught up with them. 

“I got ’em all,” he told Serd. 
“None of them like the way Gover- 
nor Allen sounded. They’re coming 
here.. Doc Hallidane and Lord will 
be here in about five minutes, Pete 
Carson’s already on his way. I 
told them to come in beside the old 
Administration Building where we 
landed and ditch their ships in the 
bush. We don’t need to advertise 
w'ho all’s here. What are you sup- 
posed to be doing?” 

“Getting under cover. We’re go- 
ing back in to the old generating 
rooms that way the Centralists 
won’t get to burn us up quite so 
soon.” 

“What’s to prevent their coming 
in after us?” Benny demanded. 

“They’ll probably just clean up on 
our ships and let it go at that,” 
Pader Norton suggested. 

The clearing away around the en- 



PUTSCH 



91 



trance to the generating rooms was 
going fast. They ripped aside the 
last, of the heavy mat of vines and 
creepers that wadded solidly against 
the face of the mountain. A plane 
whispered quietly by overhead, at- 
mospheric wings fully extended, glid- 
ing in low without power. Another 
followed it a few seconds behind, 
then a third swung in higher up. 

“Doc Iiallidane and Professor 
Lord. The big ship’s Pete Carson 
and his outfit,” Serd explained with 
satisfaction. The three planes van- 
ished over the site of the old Ad- 
ministration Building. The ripping 
crash of their landing as they crushed 
down through the heavy foliage 
drifted back to the Free People 
around the mouth of the tunnel. 

“Say the Centralists could sneak 
up on us like that,” Pader said 
thoughtfully. 

“Maybe we better post lookouts,” 
Osa suggested. 

Serd nodded, “Good idea. Benny, 
go on dowm and bring Iiallidane and 
Lord up here.” 

Benny muttered to himself as he 
vanished down the trail. Osa di- 
rected two of the girls in the group 
around the tunnel mouth back to the 
ships to watch for the Centralists. 

Serd and Pader led the way into 
the abandoned passage. A hundred 
yards in the high, domed roof of the 
first generator room, cut out of the 
solid rock, arched darkly above 
them. The foundations of the huge 
old turbo-generators loomed vastly 
in the great room. The intake ends 
of the sixty-inch water conduits were 
shields of Stygian blackness ranged 
against the inner wall. 

“These were the secondary gen- 
erators, the primaries are farther 
in,” Serd explained. The dust of 
years fluffed soundlessly under their 
feet as the cavalcade of Free People 
followed Serd and Pader another 



fifty yards to the smaller room that 
had housed the high-pressure pri- 
mary generators. 

“I guess we can camp here,” Pader 
Norton directed. “What about 
drinking water?” 

Serd sw ung a light to a wide band 
of pipes bracketed against the wall 
of the passage. 

“Those serviced the Landing Sta- 
tion. They’re probably shut off at 
the master valve panel. That’s 
farther up the main shaft. There 
used to be elevators but it was all 
torn out long ago. The emergency 
stairs are left.” 

Pader and Serd returned to the 
entrance. Benny was coming up the 
trail with eight or ten men behind 
him. Serd recognized the fierce little 
hairy brown wisp of a man in the 
lead. It was Doc Hallidane. The 
huge, ragged gray form of Professor 
Lord towered behind him. The wide, 
chunky figure of Pete Carson at the 
head of his miners followed them. 

“AH right, Serd, let’s have it,” 
Doc Hallidane invited as soon as 
Serd emerged from the tunnel. 
“Benny won’t talk and you’re hold- 
ing up some very important work 
I was doing.” 

“Quit talking and give him a 
chance, yuh little runt,” Professor 
Lord suggested good-naturedly. 

Doc Hallidane snarled at him but 
Serd cut in hastily before anything 
could happen. The verbal w'ar as 
conducted by these two was famous 
all over Venus. With Osa and Pader 
Norton prompting, Serd sketched 
the situation briefly. 

Professor Lord nodded slowly. “I 
saw an experimental demonstration 
of this electron disruption business 
the last time I was on Earth and it’s 
sure dynamite,” he said soberly. 

“It’s dangerous at both ends of 
the transmitter,” Osa pointed out. 



§S 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Listen!” Professor Lord said sud- 
denly. 

High-pitched sound was building 
up, a vicious, whining drone, indi- 
cating tremendous, high-pressure 
power. It implied a threat they all 
felt. 

Serd could feel the hair on the 
back of his neck lifting. “It must 
be the enemy,” he said; his voice had 
tightened up. 

The lookouts came bounding up 
the trail. “Ship, way off toward the 
west, coming fast!” 

“Back into the tunnel,” Serd or- 
dered. Doc Hallidane, Professor 
Lord and Pader Norton stayed with 
him in the entrance to watch. 

The sound of approaching air- 
craft grew and built to a spine- 
chilling wail of impossibly intense 
power. Incredulous silence closed 
down on the men in the tunnel. 
They all worked with atomic drives 
and knew the sound of their output. 
The power production indicated by 
the sound they heard simply could- 
n’t exist but it continued to beat 
its insistent, rising threat into their 
ears. 

“Merciful heavens! Something is 
sure as hell overloaded,” Professor 
Lord muttered. 

“There it is!” Serd snapped. 

“There it was,” Doc Hallidane cor- 
rected. The slim streak of a ship 
flashed at incredible speed across the 
field of vision from the narrow clear- 
ing. 

“Maybe they’ve missed us,” Pader 
Norton suggested hopefully. 

A whining howl slashed through 
the tumult of sound that filled the 
valley as the Centralists’ super- 
powered ship swung about, coming 
back. Tt came in higher. They 
beard the crackling, crushing rush 
of its repulsor field contact surging 
up the ridge as the weight of the 
ship, transmitted through the field. 



smashed the jungle flat along its 
course. 

“Repulsor field extension twelve 
hundred feet or more,” Pader Nor- 
ton’s voice was awed and incredu- 
lous. “That’s better than three 
times our limit.” 

The incoming ship began to rise 
abruptly as the field contacted the 
ridge, then it dropped jerkily, caught 
itself in a jarring recovery. 

“I guess that much power is hard 
to control,” Serd suggested. 

“That’s it,” Pader Norton told 
him. “No one can handle it yet. 
Those fools are rushing everything. 
They’re just — ” 

The Centralists’ ship had worked 
itself into position. There was a 
sudden tensity in the air. A tenu- 
ous fluff of steam outlined an invis- 
ible, widening beam projected from 
the ship, a weak ripple of blue fire 
flashed momentarily. A crackling, 
snarling crash of thunder slammed 
with mad ferocity against the moun- 
tain wall. Flame and steam and 
rock fragments ripped upward in a 
violent, concentrated explosion. A 
mighty hand hurled the watchers 
stunningly back down the tunnel. 

Serd pulled himself dazedly out 
of the tangle. The rest of them were 
recovering. A foot waving around 
hit Serd in the shin. He bent down 
and pulled on it and Osa came to 
light from under the pile. She 
pushed her hair out of her eyes and 
sat up. 

“Now maybe you think those 
people are fooling,” she snapped. 
Her top lip was cut where she had 
scraped her face along the floor and 
one eye was swelling rapidly. Her 
neat blue and silver skirt and tunic 
ensemble was torn and streaked with 
moss stains. She looked fighting- 
mad as Serd helped her up. 

“Let’s go out and see what the 



PUTSCH 



93 



rats have done,” she suggested bel- 
ligerently. 

“Yeah, and have them do it to 
us. Nothing doing,” said Serd. 
“We’ll stay in and look.” 

Outside they could hear the siz- 
zling fizz and crackle of fire trying 
to make progress through the lush 
greenness of the jungle. The creak- 
ing crack of rocks cooling and split- 
ting, shocked through the air. 

The jungle outside had been blown 
flat. Where the ships of the Free 
People had been the country was 
simply a blasted mess. Scorched 
and shattered rock was the only 
thing left in the wide, shallow crater. 
Steam rose sluggishly where discour- 
aged fire was slowly losing its battle 
with the jungle. The Centralists’ 
ship was coming down jerkily to- 
ward the rotunda foundation of the 
old Landing Station. 

It made several ineffectual stabs 
at landing before finally making it 
in about a hundred yards from the 
entrance to the tunnel. 

“They’re coming after us,” Pader 
Norton said hollowly. A hatch 
opened in the after end of the Cen- 
tralist ship and half a dozen blue- 
shirted men started struggling appa- 
ratus out onto the ground. They 
assembled it rapidly into a clumsy- 
looking arrangement framed in 
welded metal girderwork. There 
were two heavy metal plates one 
above the other, separated by stubby 
columns and on top a short hori- 
zontal, transparent cylinder, mas- 
sively banded with dull metal. The 
whole assembly was mounted on 
skids. 

“That’s a smaller edition of what 
fired at us in Venus City,” Pader 
said. 

“It looks pretty crude,” Serd sug- 
gested. 

“Perhaps,” Osa conceded. “But 
if that crude arrangement gets up 



here we’ll be finished, and they’re 
heading this way.” 

The men around the projector 
started dragging it along the up- 
ward slope of the top of the ridge 
toward the mouth of the tunnel. 

“Well, they don’t have to get 
here,” Professor Lord growled. 

“What’s going to stop them?” Hal- 
lidane snapped. 

“If you’re half as good at getting 
through the bush as you say you 
are, we could sneak out there and 
bushwhack the whole crowd.” 

“For once you're talking sense,” 
Hallidane agreed. “But we gotta 
have something to kill them off 
with.” 

Professor Lord picked up a large 
chunk of rock in his huge hand. 
“Bash ’em,” he said briefly. 

“You would,” Hallidane snorted 
disgustedly. “And have the others 
in the ship burn you up while you’re 
doing it.” 

“All right, you think of some- 
thing.” 

“I already have. Blowguns. A 
couple of lengths of gama reed will 
do for the tubes, use pica thorns for 
darts. We can wad them with cello- 
cotton from the first-aid kit and I’ve 
got some lizard venom specimens in 
my ship that’ll lay those guys out so 
fast they won’t even blink.” 

“Well, quit stalling around, let’s 
g°-” 

“I’m waiting for you,” Hallidane 
snarled. “And watch where you put 
your big feet. Remember, we’re try- 
ing to take them by surprise.” 

“Just see that you don’t trip over 
any roots and we’ll be all right,” 
Professor Lord growled. The two 
of them slipped out into the jungle 
and vanished without a sound. 

Pete Carson stared out at the ac- 
tivities of the Centralists for a mo- 
ment. 

“The way their ship is lying we 



94 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



could sure dump a heap of rock on 
it if we could get up above them on 
the slope out there,” he said 
abruptly. 

Serd glanced at Osa. Her puffed- 
up lip and half-closed eye made a 
fiendish grimace out of her smile of 
satisfaction. 

“Let’th go. We’ll bury the 
bumth,” she managed. 

“We can get you up above,” Serd 
said. “Can you ‘get some explo- 
sive?” 

“Did you think them was sand- 
wiches we brought in our packs?” 
Carson demanded. “We got enough 
dutrol to blow this mountain apart.” 

“Grab your stuff and follow me. 
Have you got drills?” 

- “Won’t need ’em, there’ll be 
broken rock on the face. Come on 
you miners! We got a job to do,” 
he bellowed to his crew. They came 
on the run. 

“Up here,” Serd directed from the 
first of the steel stairways that led 
up the shaft. The clattering slough 
of hurrying shoes on metal filled the 
huge shaft with echoes as they fol- 
lowed. Two hundred steps and they 
were in the valve room. The first 
construction tunnel led off from here 
back toward the face of the moun- 
tain. Serd led the way. They 
slashed through the thick jungle 
across the narrow ledge outside the 
tunnel. 

Serd poked his head anxiously out 
into the open. The mountainside 
dropped out and down below them 
and farther out and down and down 
in mile-long, sweeping concave 
curves of luxuriant green dulling to 
the blue of distance and mist, blue- 
black out beyond in the depths. The 
ridge, the top of a massive mountain 
that filled the width of the vast 
chasm, seemed to hang like a fairy 
bridge, floating brilliant green on the 



misty blue blur of impossible depth. 

Men struggled there with the pro- 
jector, two hundred feet below, and 
it was closer. 

“We gotta hurry,” Serd said anx- 
iously as he felt someone move be- 
side him. 

Osa’s voice answered, “Yeth, it 
lookth like it. Damn thith lip!” 

“You should have stayed below 
and got it attended to.” 

"And mith thith? Don’t be 
thilly.” 

Serd caught a furtive suggestion of 
movement in the jungle beside the 
blasted crater where the Free 
People’s ships had been. The crew 
of Centralists were grunting and 
struggling, heaving their equipment 
up the slope of its side. Immedi- 
ately below the ledge and to either 
side Serd and Osa could hear Carson 
and his men as they slipped care- 
fully through the heavy jungle on 
the mountain face. They were all 
experts and this job of scaling off 
a face was old stuff to them. 

“Look!” Osa hissed and pointed. 

Serd followed her line and saw 
where Doc Hallidane and Professor 
Lord lay behind the last screening of 
brush at the edge of the crater. They 
hadn’t been there a moment before. 
As they watched two of the men on 
the projector crew stiffened and col- 
lapsed. 

“Got ’em!” Osa muttered with 
deep satisfaction. 

The rest of the projector crew 
looked inquiringly at their compan- 
ions, then two more of them slumped 
to the ground. Possibly the other 
two lived long enough to know what 
killed them but not long enough 
to do anything about it. A yell 
drifted up from the Centralist ship. 
A man stood at the open after hatch 
looking toward the inert projector 
crew. 

“Figure that one out, you 



PUTSCH 



95 



thkunth!” Osa invited viciously. 

“Just quicklike I’d say you seemed 
to be a trifle bitter,” Serd suggested 
mildly. 

“They wrecked our thyip and 
would have killed uth all,” Osa grit- 
ted. “Bethideth they’re crathy.” 

Carson scrambled back onto the 
ledge with his crew behind him like 
a pack of hounds. “We’re all set. 
How’s it going? Doc and Lord get 
clear?” 

Serd just pointed to the almost 
imperceptible stirring of the jungle 
where the two men faded quietly 
away from the crater. 

“We’ll miss ’em,” Carson grunted 
as he poked the firing keys of his 
portable transmitter. 

A ripping, heaving thunder of 
sound surged out from the moun- 
tain face. The ledge shocked jar- 
ringly upward. A slice of jungle- 
shrouded mountainside surged out- 
ward, collapsed, crumbled on itself 
and tumbled in shattered rubble to- 
ward the ridge, smashing down on 
the forward control bridge of the 
Centralist ship. The stem flung up, 
the man in the after hatch was 
hurled clear, a twisting helpless doll 
that smashed down into the jungle. 
Then, incredibly, the ship tore itself 
loose from the encroaching slide, 
rolled half over and leaped into the 
air. 

“What power!” Carson whispered 
in amazement. He blinked stupidly 
at the others. “It got away.” 

“That ’th what you think,” Osa 
lisped grimly. “Look!” 

The stern of the ship rose rapidly, 
racing the bow upward. At five 
hundred feet the stern won and the 
swinging momentum slammed the 
ship over on its back. It shuddered 
with the downward thrust of the 
tremendously super-powered repul- 
sors. It rolled over as it fell and at 
two hundred feet the repulsor fields 



came to bear on the ridge again. 

The tortured ship jarred agoniz- 
ingly to a stop in midair, the bow 
buckled with a scream of torn metal 
as its back broke. Tt started to rise 
again, with weary, crippled slowness, 
the stern going up to repeat the dis- 
astrous maneuver. Then it just 
flopped, plummeted down without, 
power. The forward section burst 
like a rotten melon; the stern half 
tore loose and leaped end over end, 
ripping a deep gash through the rich 
jungle in its mad clanging flight to 
the misty blue depths. The echoes 
rumbled away, battered back and 
forth and faded into the vast, wait- 
ing silence of the green planet. 

The group on the ridge stood, 
stunned into silence by the high- 
speed violence of the action. 

“That’s that,” Carson said finally. 

“Their power mutht have been 
thyut off from headquarterth jutht 
at the latht there,” Osa said thought- 
fully. “They couldn’t rithk a major 
equipment failure while they were 
tranthmitting.” 

“Probably,” Serd agreed. “Let’s 
go below and get that lip fixed so 
you can speak English again.” 

“Nutth!” Osa told him as they 
started back down the construction 
tunnel. 

Everyone was in the secondary 
generator room when they got there. 

“Can you do anything about a face 
like that?” Serd asked Doc Halli- 
dane, indicating Osa’s damaged fea- 
tures. 

“Boy, that’s a shiner,” Hallidane 
admitted. “You been fighting with 
your men folks again?” 

“Don’t be funny,” Osa suggested. 
“Jutht ficth me up.” They went 
hunting for Hallidane’s medical kit. 

“Lord, Carson, Norton, come 
here,” Serd said suddenly. “I’ve got 
an idea. We’ve got some stonework 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



and pipe fitting to do,” he talked 
fast. 

“You got something there,” Nor- 
ton agreed. 

“We'll blow ’em t’ hell,” Carson 
seconded. 

Pader Norton rounded up the 
Free People and they started build- 
ing a barricade halfway between the 
secondary generator room and the 
entrance to the tunnel. They used 
broken rock from the slide, fusing it 
together with one of the cutting 
torches. Half a hundred pairs of 
hands pushed the work forward rap- 
idly. Benny and Serd started cut- 
ting, fitting and welding pipe with 
another torch. They got four lines 
of three-inch pipe laid and connected 
into a sprinkler system over the bar- 
ricade and the job was finished. The 
last of the builders scrambled back 
over. 

“I think I heard something com- 
ing,” Osa said. 

“Don’t be silly. They’ll get here 
fast but not that fast,” Serd told her. 

“Listen,” Professor Lord com- 
manded. The murmur of voices 
died away and into the silence crept 
a deep, distant note of ominous 
power. 

“They sure don't lose any time,” 
Carson muttered. 

“Sounds bigger,” Hallidane con- 
tributed. 

“We’re gonna get it this time,” 
Benny said, his voice rising. 

The sound of the approaching ship 
grew at incredible speed. The vast 
echoes shifted and slammed about 
in the valley, boiled and thundered 
higher and higher. There wasn’t a 
sound from the half-hundred people 
behind the barricade. Their eyes 
were big with fear as they looked 
at each other and found no reassur- 
ance. 

“Power. Just brute power,” Pro- 



fessor Lord muttered in an awed 
voice. 

“Without adequate control,” Osa 
snapped. 

The crashing echoes built to a ter- 
rific climax then lost their source and 
started to die down. 

“They’re coming in,” Benny 
warned ominously. 

They heard the monstrous giant’s 
tread of repulsor fields contacting 
the jungle and tramping it flat. The 
crushing sound stopped and settled. 
They waited tensely, acutely con- 
scious of the great ship that hovered 
outside. A high, moaning whine 
knifed through the air. The harsh, 
splattering crack of rocks exploding 
shocked agonizingly down the tun- 
nel. It built to a ragged, rattling 
thunder. Dust and smoke rolled 
chokingly in and swirled up against 
the barricade. The crackling bar- 
rage of bursting stone was blasted 
to massive violence, the rushing roar 
of fire was somewhere in the deaf- 
ening background. The whole moun- 
tain shook and trembled with tre- 
mendous earthquake shocks. Then, 
incredibly, the echoes lost their sup- 
port and died away. Astounded si- 
lence flowed cautiously back with 
the choking, slow swirl of dust and 
smoke that drifted over the barri- 
cade. 

“Fifteen seconds,” Osa said unbe- 
lievingly. “That’s all it took.” 

“I’m gonna see what they did,” 
Benny grunted and scrambled over 
the barricade. 

He disappeared in the smoke; 
they saw him duck low under the 
edge of it. The sound of his feet 
lost itself among the straining, la- 
borious cracking of cooling stone. 
The sizzling fizz of jungle burning 
came to them and the smoke was 
thicker in the waiting silence behind 
the barricade. Then feet were com- 



PUTSCH 



97 



ing, running. Serd pulled Benny 
back over. 

“They’re coming,” he panted. 
“They must have landed before they 
started wrecking the place. They've 
missed the ships over past the Ad- 
ministration Building but they’ve 
cleaned up the jungle outside so no 
one could sneak near them. They 
got two projectors at least.” 

“Up in the construction tunnel 
I guess is the best place now,” Serd 
decided. The crowd behind the bar- 
ricade melted magically. 

“Those are the four valves,” Serd 
instructed as they reached the valve 
room and he found the ones he had 
marked. “Lord, Pader, Benny, take 
one each. The rest of you wait down 
the tunnel.” 

A short whine and a splattering 
crack echoed up from below. 

“They’ve started,” Benny yapped 
fearfully. The four men stood tense, 
the shocking cracks became heavier, 
built to a climax. 

“Let her go!” Serd shouted. Eight 
hands spun madly at the slow 
threads of the high-pressure valves. 

Nothing happened. The sharp, 
concentrated blasts of destruction 
continued to rip out from below. 
The high-pressure hiss of water slid 
down the scale, hit a bass and 
scraped solidly through the three- 
inch lines. They heard that, then 
a slow, building thunder of sound 
rose and rushed and heaved tremen- 
dously. A solid, resistless Whoosh! 
slammed up the shaft. The moun- 
tain trembled and shook, the four 
men were thrown to their knees, 
their hands still on the valve wheels. 

Serd got to his feet groggily. He 
felt scalded and scared and wet. 
That rush of air or steam or whatever 
it was had been hot. He heard the 
high-pressure beat and rush of 
water; he started automatically shut- 
ting the valve in his hands. 



“Seems like you were right,” Pro- 
fessor Lord said quietly. “Ob- 
viously an electronic disrupter beam 
converts water into steam very rap- 
idly.” 

“Rapidly?” Carson crowed as they 
hurried down to the barricade. “I 
betcha what’s left of those guys has 
been blasted back to last Friday.” 

The tunnel was immaculately 
clean, scoured. The barricade had 
vanished; the water pipes were split 
and flattened against the wall. 
There was no sign of the Centralists 
or their equipment. 

“Well, it did a nice sanitary job,” 
Professor Lord observed. “That’s 
two lots of them. I wonder how 
long they’re going to keep this up?” 

Benny went questing ahead like 
a curious bird dog. Then he was 
back with a peculiar look on his 
face. 

“We got rid of that first bunch all 
right but what are we going to do 
about this other outfit that’s com- 
ing in now?” 

“Huh? Where?” They went to- 
ward the entrance on the run. The 
Centralist ship lay fifty feet away 
across the entrance. 

“That sure isn’t much ship to 
kick up all the stink it did,” Lord 
muttered. 

“Probably it doesn't need fuel 
tanks,” Serd grunted. “That’s an- 
other projector they're setting up 
all right. I thought the treatment 
we gave them would scare ’em so 
they’d keep out of our tunnel.” 

“They must be getting desperate,” 
Lord said thoughtfully. “They’ve 
got to get us now.” 

“They will, too. They’re coming!” 
Benny chattered. 

The crew around the projector 
finished their assembling and started 
purposefully dragging the bulky 
equipage toward the tunnel entrance. 



98 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“The hell they will!” Serd 
growled. “I got ideas. Come on, 
we’re going upstairs.” 

The whole metal framework of 
the stairway cut loose with a short, 
heavy, resounding hum as they 
reached the top. Benny flashed the 
white beam of his atomic light down- 
ward. 

“The whole bottom of the stair- 
way’s gone!” He yelled in sudden 
fear. “They’ve got us!” 

“Whatever you’re fixing to do you 
better do it fast,” Carson said 
tensely. 

“It’s nothing very complicated,” 
Serd explained. “You’re just going 
to blow these water conduits.” His 
mind flashed the vision of those five, 
solid columns of water sloping two 
miles back up through the mountain 
as he spoke. Released suddenly they 
would smash down with a liquid, 
pile-driver force that would wreck 
anything. He felt himself shaking. 
The bludgeoning, brute force of those 
millions of tons of water was more 
terrifying than the concentrated 
power of the Centralists’ disrupter 
beam. 

“I’ll get the gang up to the next 
construction tunnel,” he managed. 
“We gotta hurry.” 

Carson yelled for his miners and 
got to work. Serd and Osa and 
Pader herded out the rest of the 
crowd. The echo of their clattering 
climb up the great shaft mingled 
with the snapping, ripping detona- 
tions that came from below and 
urged them to faster flight. Evi- 
dently the Centralists were tearing 
everything apart as they came and 
taking no chances. 

Carson and his crew scrambled 
into the higher tunnel behind the 
last of the Free People. 

“All set?” Serd demanded. 

“Yeah. Let her go any time. 
I—” 



Carson’s words were cut off by a 
deep, vibrant hum from the outside. 
The spluttering crackle of exploding 
rock filled the air. The stairway 
crumpled and vanished down the 
shaft. They didn’t hear it fall. 
Fragments of stone skipped and 
ricocheted down the construction 
tunnel. Grunts and yells came from 
the Free People as some of them 
were hit. 

“Let ’em have it!” Serd barked. 

Carson stabbed viciously at the 
firing buttons of his detonator. A 
rolling surge of thunder built and < 
heaved upward, then it vanished in , 
the tremendous, obliterating crash 
of falling water. The mountain 
rocked as the liquid avalanche piled 
into the bottom of the shaft. The 
steady, rushing thundered solidly to 
a deafening, Gargantuan roar and 
stayed there. Serd followed the 
Free People on a run for the out- 
side of the mountain. The thunder 
of waters faded out behind them as 
they approached the outside end of 
the tunnel. 

“Take it easy,” Serd w T arned. 
“That ship is probably cruising 
around out there.” 

That slowed the crew down and he 
cautiously hacked out an opening 
through the vines. The surging rush 
of a mighty torrent was rapidly fill- 
ing the great valley with sound. 

“I don’t see any ship,” Osa said 
in a moment. 

“There should be one,” Serd 
grunted, but nothing moved in the 
vast reach of empty space they com- 
manded from the mountainside. 

“Look!” Osa pointed. 

Half a thousand feet below T a mas- 
sive tofrent of muddy water spewed 
out of the entrance to the generator 
rooms. It piled up and turned 
sharply east at the foundations of 
the Landing Station rotunda, leap- 
ing into space and plunging down 



into the depths instead of continu- 
ing down the ridge. Something lay 
| directly athwart the surging flood. 
It was the long, slim, battered shape 
of a ship. 

“We got 'em!” It was Carson’s 
aw T ed voice. 

“They should have been able to 
pull out w ith all the power they had,” 
Lord said worriedly. 

“Not a chance,” Osa vetoed. 
“Their central distributor can’t af- 
ford to shove power into equipment 
that’s damaged or in danger of get- 
ting damaged; they’d get a surge 
back of power and they can’t handle 
that.” 

“Well, what do we do next?” 
Benny asked. “Those guys are going 
to be sore now. I figure we should 
get out while the getting’s good.” 

“Where would we get to?” Car- 
son asked. 

Serd thought quickly. The good 
landing possibilities w'ithin range of 
the atmospheric ships were decid- 
edly limited. 

“I'm afraid the only place in range 
where we can put down safely is 
just outside Venus City,” he said 
slowly. “And that’s not much good 
to us.” 

“Why isn't it?” Osa demanded. 
“That's the last place they’ll expect 
us; they don’t even know we've got 
ships. We might even move in on 
them. They certainly won’t expect 
us to attack.” 

“Say — maybe you got something 
there,” Carson conceded. “I'd like 
to dump a little dutrol around those 
birds in their own home town.” 

A half-hour’s scrambling struggle 
took them dowui to the concealed 
ships. 

“We’ll have to dump some fuel 
to get everyone on board,” Benny 
said thoughtfully. “But I think we 
can just about make it.” 




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They did. Two hours later three 
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AST— 7 



CITY STATE 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 




100 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



mountains lay behind them, and the 
brilliant lights of Venus City glim- 
mered upward through the cloud 
layers. They cut their drives and 
slipped quietly down without power. 

Benny led the way in from the 
south, making in over the city high 
above the effective range of the 
lights. They passed on to the virgin 
jungle at the northern end of the 
long ridge, settled carefully down to 
an easy landing, the four ships dis- 
appearing with ripping crashes into 
the jungle. Fifteen minutes of 
shouting and flashing lights got 
them all together by Pete Carson’s 
ship. 

“Well, what’s next?” Pader Nor- 
ton asked. 

“I figure the best thing we can do 
is just go right into town,” Serd 
told him. 

“Yeah? What’s the second best?” 
Carson asked. 

“I mean it,” Serd insisted. “These 
Centralists don’t know any of us.” 

“I figured you’d start something 
foolish like that,” Benny muttered. 

The machetes started beating 
through the jungle again as they 
stumbled along in the indirect, cloud- 
diffused half light that was the best 
Venus could do in the way of dark- 
ness. It was beginning to lighten to- 
ward the early dawn when they 
reached the outskirts of the city. 

The streets of the compact little 
headquarters settlement were bril- 
liantly lighted. It was ominously 
quiet; no one w r as in sight. They 
slipped along a hundred feet, mak- 
ing no sound as they moved toward 
the massive towering wall of the 
Landing Station rotunda that lifted 
above the other city buildings. 

“Oh . . . oh. Do you know what 
this is?” Osa whispered. 

Serd halted, leaped back into the 
side street from which they had just 



emerged and dragged the girl with 
him. 

"What’s the matter?” Lord de- 
manded. 

“A projector mounted in the street 
just outside the Landing Station. 

“Well what didja expect? A wel- 
come mat?” Benny demanded. 

“There are other streets.” 

“Yeah, and other projectors I bet.” 

“We could find out.” Carson 
gathered his attentive miners with 
a look. “Skitter round and see how 
they’re posted,” he directed. 

“Where you going, Benny?” 

“I’m gonna see if there’s anyone 
alive in this town and what’s been 
going on.” 

Serd and the others waited nerv- 
ously, peeking out at the alert pro- 
jector crew occasionally, where they 
were sharply visible against the 
white wall of the Landing Station 
rotunda. 

Benny slipped back into the 
group. Serd recognized Markham 
of the Venus City Communications 
Service with him. The Communica- 
tions man looked sore and scared. 

“What are you guys trying to do? 
Get the whole city burned up?” he 
demanded. 

“Hey, slow down,” Serd advised. 
“Where do you get this burn-up 
stuff?” 

“It’s those Centralists. They had 
a setback somewhere up the valley 
here and they’re hopping mad. We 
gotta stay off the streets and behave 
or they’re gonna disintegrate the 
whole city. And don’t think they 
can’t! I’ve seen them — ” 

“We've seen them, too,” Serd cut 
in. “And we’re the setback they ran 
into. We’ve come down here so 
they can run into us again.” 

“Now look here, Serd. You 
aren’t going to start anything here.” 
Markham spluttered desperately. 



PUTSCH 



191 



“Good heavens, man! There’s thou- 
sands of people — ” 

Carson’s miners reported in. 

“Seems like they've got all points 
covered,” Serd summed up thought- 
fully. 

“That’s what I say,” Markham 
cut in anxiously. “They got us dead 
to rights. We can’t move.” 

“We could remove one of those 
points they’re covering,” Carson 
said grimly. “Then make a dive 
through to the Landing Station and 
see what we could do there.” 

“You couldn’t get near that pro- 
jector,” Markham snorted. 

“1 was thinking in terms of get- 
ting into those two buildings next 
to this projector up the street and 
blowing them down on top of it,” 
Carson explained. 

“What’ll that get you?” Markham 
demanded wildly. “They’ll just 
move another projector over — ” 

“That’s it,” Osa snapped tensely. 
“Make a diversion here, see? Then 
when they start to move another 
projector in I go through to the 
Landing Station and see if I can do 
a job on their power receiver.” 

“I’ll handle that angle,” Serd put 
in quickly. 

“Think I can’t do it?” Osa de- 
manded. 

“Sure, but — ” 

“But nothing. You don’t know 
anything about a space-warp power 
receiver. You wouldn't know what 
to do.” 

“You can tell me.” 

“There’s no time. Carson, how 
do you handle one of those detona- 
tors?” Carson glanced quickly at 
Serd then proceeded to explain rap- 
idly. 

“How do we know which projector 
they’re going to move?” Serd de- 
manded. 

“The one to the right of us is 
closest,” Carson supplied. 



“Now listen, you guys — you can’t 
do this to us,” Markham wailed. 
Pader Norton and Professor Lord 
gave him the stern eye. 

“Give me a minute to get over in 
the next street then fire when you’re 
ready,” Osa instructed Carson. The 
miner nodded wordlessly. 

Serd just stared after her help- 
lessly. He knew he should do some- 
thing to stop her but he didn’t know 
what. 

Carson’s voice brought him back. 
“I want to know how to get into 
those two corner buildings without 
being seen,” he told Markham. 

“YVell, first of all you go — ” 

“No, we don’t go. You come.” 
Carson and his miners departed. 
Ten minutes seemed to flash by and 
they were back again. 

“All set,” Carson said grimly. 
“We’ll see how those bums like be- 
ing buried.” 

“Now wait a minute. We’ve got 
to get everything straight,” Serd 
said anxiously. “We gotta make 
sure they bring that next projector 
here. We gotta get in there and 
make plenty of diversion. We gotta 
make sure they don’t notice Osa. 
We gotta — ” 

“Take it easy,” Carson growled. 
“I know what we gotta do.” He 
punched in his firing pattern. 

The air grabbed and shook them. 
A rumbling thunder heaved to life 
up the street. The sharp, concen- 
trated rattle of material exploding 
in a projector beam cracked out vio- 
lently. Then it cut off and was 
smothered in the defeated, final 
crash of falling buildings. 

“Come on!” Serd screamed above 
the racket and tore out into the 
wrecked street. ' 

The Free People streamed after 
him, yelling and shouting to make 



102 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



sure they weren’t overlooked. They 
scrambled over the still tumbling 
heap of rubble from the two fallen 
buildings and into the cross street 
that skirted the rotunda of the Land- 
ing Station. A projector crew was 
in position to the right. Serd yelled 
and heaved a jagged chunk of 
broken cement. The Free People 
backed him up. 

The projector crew instinctively 
ducked for cover as the primitive 
barrage pounded around them. Then 
two of them grabbed the skids of 
the projector and started heaving 
the heavy apparatus around. 

“Get down, everyone!” Serd yelled 
and lunged forward. Someone 
kicked his feet together and he 
slammed down onto the roadway. 
He rolled over and saw Benny hurl 
his short compact body at the Cen- 
tralists struggling with the projec- 
tor. They went down in a fighting 
tangle. 

The short transparent barrel of 
the projector suddenly glowed red. 
The apparatus cut loose with a vio- 
lent, moaning hum of tremendous 
overload. Then abruptly the world 
ripped itself apart with a blindingly 
incandescent, thundering crash. 
Serd felt himself being hurled for 
miles before he blacked out. 

When he came to he was appar- 
ently still flying through space. A 
portion of Venus City lay spread 
out below him. He must have been 
flying a long time; there were no 
lights in the city below but the soft, 
indirect light of a Venusian day 
made everything clearly visible. He 
could see the Landing Station ro- 
tunda but there was something 
wrong with it. The massive walls, 
built ten times over-strength to 
withstand the terrific violence of a 
possible atomic fuel explosion, were 
ripped and split and sagged wearily 
outward. Evidently he had ceased 



rising and was hanging motionless 
in space; the city below didn’t seem 
to be getting any smaller. 

Something blocked off his view of 
the rest of the city. Something that 
looked like a white mountain range, 
probably clouds. He focused on 
them carefully. They wiggled jerk- 
ily; clouds shouldn’t act like that. 
Abruptly he seemed to see them 
clearly in relation to their surround- 
ings. They were his feet, under a 
sheet; he was lying in a bed, high 
up in a building that overlooked the 
wrecked Landing Station. 

Time had passed. Where were 
the rest of them? He tried to sit 
up, made it halfw'ay and fell back 
dizzily. Quick, soft footsteps ap- 
proached. 

“You shouldn’t try that yet,” a 
voice told him quietly. It sounded 
vaguely familiar. A face drifted 
into view among the red and blue 
lights that kept flashing in front of 
his eyes. They faded out. 

“Osa,” he said simply in recogni- 
tion. “What happened, where is 
everybody?” 

“The Centralists’ power receiver 
failed under full load when I dumped 
a can of dutrol in it. The break- 
down wrecked the Landing Station 
and a lot of the city.” 

“I know', I could see. You got 
through all right then. Many hurt?” 

“Yes. Quite a few. A lot of the 
Centralists were in the station. We 
haven’t found any trace of them.” 

“Where’s Benny?” he asked and 
he knew what the answer would be. 
It was a long time coming. 

Osa picked up his hand. “He’s 
dead,” she said finally. 

Serd had been expecting it but a 
stab of sharp pain leaped through 
him at the finality of her words. 
Blackness rushed over him but he 
held onto her hand and pulled him- 



PUTSCH 



10S 



self back. She was speaking. 

“He saved a lot of lives,” she 
said. 

Of course he had, the crazy little 
coot. It was just like him to belly- 
ache all the way, then throw in 
everything and come through in the 
pinch. 

“The Centralists are finished,” 
Osa went on. “When the receiver 
broke down here the surge back over- 
loaded the transmitter on Earth. 
Their whole plant blew up. Their 
trouble was they tried to rush every- 
thing; they didn’t wait to build 
right. A lot of people died but it’s 
all over. 

“It was all over.” The few words 
echoed soothingly, smoothing over 
pain and loss, filling in the ragged, 
torn places that hurt. 

“What about you?” Serd asked 



finally. “I guess you’ll be leaving 
with the Free People.” 

“No,” Osa said slowly. “We 
aren’t Free People any more. The 
Solar System is partly our world 
now. We helped to save it; we’ve 
got to help see that it keeps operat- 
ing now.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“I don’t know yet. Abort t the 
only thing I’m good at is handling 
a ship. I’ll find some way to help.” 
Serd was silent a moment; there 
was something he was trying to 
think of. Then he had it. 

“I’ll be needing a pilot now,” he 
said. There was a long pause. 

“Will I do?” Osa asked softly, 
hopefully. 

Serd gripped her hand reassur- 
ingly. “Sure will,” he said drowsily 
and slipped contentedly into sleep. 



THE END. 



9$ i^evt CVWcu jic in tfh 

S (3on|Wfion ? 



Only one man in the world knows the secret 
of Sen-Sen. Behind closed doors he blends its 
precious ingredients. And some people feel 
there’s magic in its making. 

Certain it is that Sen-Sen sweetens yonr breath 
and thrills you with its unusual haunting flavor. 
But some say it does more . . . gives men and 
girls who use it a special fascination. 

Try it yourself. Sen-Sen is potent yet 
pleasing. Sold everywhere in five and ten 
cent packages. 




' ow TH * 



fHftOAT CASe 

**lU*H t TO 




104 



SPflCf IS I) SPfCTM 

By R. $. Richardson 

A science article on the non-emptiness of interstellar space. 
The void between the stars represents the most tenuous gas 
men have ever studied, but by weird instruments and 
high-power mathematics, its secrets are being determined. 



“Is there anything between the 
stars?” 

A century, or even fifty years ago, 
an astronomer could have answered 
that question with a single word. 
Without the slightest hesitation, he 
would solemnly have assured you 
that the space between the stars is 
filled with ether. Otherwise, except 
for an occasional meteor, it is empty. 

The ether, however, by its re- 
markable properties easily made up 
for the lack of other interstellar ma- 
terial. More rigid than steel, more 
transparent than glass, it allowed the 
planets to pass through it without 
offering the slightest resistance. Per- 
haps its most unique feature was the 
impossibility of detecting its pres- 
ence. You could never hope to see 
the ether, or smell it, or make it ap- 
parent by instrumental means. Nev- 
ertheless, scientists felt quite confi- 
dent it was always there on the job, 
busily transmitting energy from one 
part of the universe to another. 

The ether was long ago consigned 
to the scientific junk yard, along 
with coronium, the Thompson atom, 
and Helmholtz’s contraction theory. 
Nobody seems to care any more how 
light manages to get from one star 
to another. We accept the fact that 
it does without feeling the necessity 
of assuming some means of convey- 
ance. Indeed, the mere thought of 
an all-pervading luminiferous sub- 



stance is highly offensive to many 
scientific minds. The relativitists, 
in particular, shudder at the men- 
tion of that awful five-letter word, 
the e. . .r! 

Today, more and more, astrono- 
mers are turning their attention 
from the stars to the matter that lies 
between the stars. For it is becom- 
ing increasingly clear that interstel- 
lar space is not just something for 
light to travel across, but a strange 
laboratory where experiments can 
occur impossible to describe in ordi- 
nary terms. It is a region where the 
speed of reaction between matter 
and radiation has slowed down un- 
til time has virtually stopped. A re- 
gion where atoms hibernate in states 
of infinite lifetime, and clocks tick 
off centuries for seconds. 

Astronomers have really had 
much of this new knowledge in their 
possession for several decades, and 
in a sense were aware of the fact 
without being exactly conscious of 
it. Here is the picture of interstellar 
space as it looked from a few years 
back. 

Certain lines were known in stel- 
lar spectra of types 0 to B3 whose 
queer behavior branded them as defi- 
nitely alien in character. To the cas- 
ual observer they looked as genuine 
as H Beta of hydrogen, or 4686 of 
He II, but to one trained in this 
work certain telltale marks definitely 



SPACE HAS A SPECTRUM 



103 



Z f z 0 
• v* « A 




betrayed them as 
members of the 
fifth column. 

Lines in spectra 
of early type are 
generally broad 
and diffuse, owing 
to the rapid veloci- 
ty with which 
these stars rotate. 

Since half the light 
of a star comes 
from the side ap- 
proaching us and 
the other half from 
the side receding, 
the spectrum lines 
will be broadened 
by Doppler effect. 

Unless, of course, 
its axis of rotation 
is pointed directly 
toward us. The 
particular lines in 
question, however, 
are sharp and 
clean cut in con- 
trast to all the 
others. Another 
suspicious feature 
is that they are 
the powerful H 
and K lines of Ca II in the violet 
and the D lines of Na I in the 
yellow. Now when the atmos- 
phere of a star is at a temperature 
of 25,000 degrees, there simply can’t 
be enough of these atoms present to 
produce absorption. For when the 
temperature is that high, all the cal- 
cium and sodium would have been 
ionized up to Ca III and Na II. We 
are forcibly driven to the conclusion 
then that the lines have nothing to 
do with the star, but are caused by 
intervening clouds of sodium and 
calcium far outside of it, evidently 
in deep interstellar space. 

This hypothesis was clinched by 
observations of such spectroscopic 



binaries as 9 Camelopardalis and 62 
Chi-2 Orionis. As the members of 
t he System revolve around their cen- 
ter of gravity, the spectrum lines pe- 
riodically show a Doppler shift to 
the red and violet — except for the 
sharp lines of Ca II and Na I. They 
refuse to share in the oscillations of 
the helium and hydrogen lines, but 
remain relatively fixed in position. 
Because of their unco-operative atti- 
tude, they have come to be known 
in the literature as “stationary” or 
“detached” lines. At first they were 
thought to be peculiar to spectro- 
scopic binaries alone, but later they 
were recognized in hundreds of high- 
temperature stars. 



Z G 



106 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



The next question was whether 
the absorption arose from one cloud 
fairly close to the star or from iso- 
lated clouds scattered throughout 
the entire galaxy. 

There is some direct observational 
evidence to support the former idea. 
Long exposure photographs of the 
Pleaides, for example, show them 
meshed in a nebulous web. With the 
spectrohelioscope, the solar promi- 
nences can be seen stretching up into 
the chromosphere faster and faster, 
until they grow faint and vanish al- 
together. There is disagreement on 
the question of whether they disap- 
pear because they exceed the velocity 
of escape, or undergo a transforma- 
tion that renders them invisible. 
But in any event, it is highly proba- 
ble that the Sun is losing large 
amounts of calcium through radia- 
tion pressure and solar explosions. 
After ejection, they were assumed 
to become attached to the cloud so 
that they showed its motion instead 
of the star's. On this basis, the star 
throws out a sort of a smoke screen 
as it rushes through space. 

A critical test was made by com- 
paring the radial velocities of the 
stellar and detached lines, and by 
noting whether there was an increase 
of intensity with distance. The re- 
sults were conclusive in favor of iso- 
lated clouds distributed throughout 
our system. Many stars showed dif- 
ferences in velocity amounting to 60 
km per second, clear proof of no pos- 
sible connection between star and 
cloud. And the relation between 
line intensity and distance turned 
out to be so good, it is now one of 
our handiest methods of getting dis- 
tances of bright objects, such as 
galactic novae. 

Stationary lines cannot be de- 
tected in stars later than B 3 because 
the temperature is low enough for 
true sodium and calcium lines to ap- 



pear, which easily blot out the faint 
interstellar lines. They are still 
there, just strong enough to spoil 
radial velocity measurements. 

The characteristic that distin- 
guishes scientists as a whole from 
the rest of mankind is their constant 
desire to upset the satus quo. Un- 
less it happens to be one of their own 
ideas, they are never content to get 
something firmly established and 
then leave it alone. - And so after 
everyone was agreed about the in- 
terstellar sodium and calcium clouds, 
certain astronomers began to worry 
because interstellar lines of other ele- 
ments had not been found. About 
three years ago they started an en- 
ergetic attack on the problem, strik- 
ing almost simultaneously on two 
different fronts. One party desired 
to detect new atoms in space by 
their absorption of the starlight 
passing through them. The other 
hoped to find evidence of light emit- 
ted from atoms in huge interstellar 
clouds covering hundreds of square 
degrees in the sky. In both cases 
success was due to “new weapons" 
far more effective than any ever em- 
ployed before in this work. 

The search for the absorption 
lines will be told first, as it pro- 
ceeded along more familiar channels 
than the discovery of the emission 
lines, which brought out some of the 
weirdest-looking apparatus so far on 
record. 

It seemed obvious that the search 
for such lines could be limited to 
rather abundant elements, and of 
these only their ultimate, rock-bot- 
tom lines were worth bothering 
about. Alone in the depths of 
space, an atom is in no position to 
pick and choose among the quanta 
passing by. Eddington has shown 
that the light from the whole galaxy 
received by us is roughly equal to 



SPACE HAS A SPECTRUM 



107 



the radiation from 2,000 stars at a 
distance of 10 parsecs. This would 
give a density of energy correspond- 
ing to an effective temperature of 
3 K; that is, a black-bulb thermome- 
ter suspended in space and in equilib- 
rium with its surroundings would 
register 3 K. Asa result, interstellar 
atoms are all down in their very low- 
est energy level, owing to lack of ex- 
citation. It may seem strange that 
calcium is found in the ionized state, 
but this is purely a photochemical 
and not a temperature effect. If an 
electron is lost, there is little hope of 
picking up another one again. As a 
matter of fact, almost all the inter- 
stellar calcium and sodium are in the 
Ca III and Na II state. It is only 
because their ultimate lines are so 
easily excited that we are aware of 
the minute amounts of Ca II and 
Na I present. 

Another condition to be met is 
that the ultimate lines of the space 
elements must be between wave 
lengths 2,900 and 12.000 angstroms. 
The spectrum on the violet side is 
limited by the atmospheric ozone 
bands, and until our observatory on 
the Moon is functioning there is 
nothing anyone can do about it. At 
the other end, the dye zenocyanine 
has pushed the photographically ob- 
servable infrared region out to about 
12,000, and the search for new sensi- 
tizers goes on continually. But right 
now 2,900 and 12,000 mark the lim- 
its within which we are compelled to 
work. 

These restrictions cut down the 
possibilities tremendously. Com- 
mon elements like hydrogen, helium, 
silicon, carbon, and oxygen with 
their strongest lines in the ultravio- 
let are eliminated right at the start. 
In fact, very few elements are able 
to meet all the requirements. Out of 
the more than 100,000 spectrum 



lines now known, only the following 
seemed likely to appear: 7,665 and 
7,669 of K I, 4,227 of Ca I, 4,078 of 
Sr II, 3,643 of Sc II, 3,720 of Fe I, 
3,994 of A1 I, and several lines of Ti 
II near 3,300. 

With the 200-inch mirror still in 
the optical shop, to find even these 
most favorable cases meant that our 
present instruments must be pushed 
to the limit, called upon to “play 
over their heads,” as it were. Ad- 
vantage would have to be taken of 
every detail in method and design 
that might be of the slightest aid. 

The program was limited to five 
hand-picked stars already known to 
have exceptionally strong interstel- 
lar calcium and sodium lines. In- 
cluded was one O-type and four su- 
pergiant B’s, all distant objects, but 
so intensely luminous that all were 
brighter than apparent magnitude 
six. 

The plates were taken at the coude 
focus of the 100-inch reflector. The 
spectrograph consisted of a Schmidt 
camera of 32 inches focal length. By 
mounting it off-axis it was possible 
to have the plate holder outside of 
the incident beam so as not to ob- 
struct the light. Absorption in the 
ultraviolet by the correcting lens was 
largely avoided by making it out of 
a thin piece of Vitaglass which gives 
good transmission down to 3,100. 
With a mirror for a collimator, the 
spectrograph was rendered nearly 
achromatic, and any region could be 
easily photographed by merely ro- 
tating the grating. 

The observers were fortunate in 
securing a large plane grating of un- 
usual brightness ruled on an alumi- 
nized Pyrex disk by R. W. W T ood. 
This is the same W T ood who got the 
navy to train seals during World 
War I for the purpose of tracking 
down submarines. The rulings were 
shaped so that light was concen- 



108 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION 



trated in the first order red and the 
second order violet. This powerful 
combination of camera and grating, 
together with some fine grain con- 
trasty emulsions, resulted in stellar 
spectra that are probably among the 
best ever obtained at this dispersion 
— about 10 angstroms per mm. 

After suitable plates had been se- 
cured, the next step was to take 
them down to the office, where they 
could be examined under the meas- 
uring machine. Here again advan- 
tage was taken of every device that 
might aid in ferreting out the lines. 
One of the biggest obstacles encoun- 
tered in work of this type is trying 
to decide whether a faint streak is a 
real spectrum line or just some silver 
grains that happen to lie in a row. 
This was mostly overcome by insert- 
ing a weak cylindrical lens above 
the microscope objective. Its action 
was such that defects and irregulari- 
ties in plate grain showed as lines 
that crossed less than half the width 
of the spectrum, while genuine lines 
extended over the entire spectrum. 
Another test was to superpose two 
plates face to face and then slide 
them along each other. True lines 
stood out for a moment as the plates 
slid past the point where they coin- 
cided in wave length. 

Out of the lines listed as good pos- 
sibilities, the following were found: 
six lines of Ti II, the two lines of 
K I, and the line of Ca I in the blue. 

Of these, the six lines of Ti II were 
by far the biggest prize. For a close 
study of the transitions involved led 
to a development no one could possi- 
bly have foreseen. It was evident 
that in addition to the six lines in 
the ultraviolet, the Ti II atom must 
also be emitting two lines in the far 
infrared impossible to produce in the 
laboratory — lines labeled jorbidden 
in letters five feet high. 



It was expected, of course, that 
the six lines would all arise from the 
ground state. But the ground state 
really consists of four sublevels very 
close together. And the six lines 
originate from the lowest sublevel 
of the lowest level in the atom. Not 
a trace could be found of lines from 
the next highest sublevel only 0.012 
volts above the ground state. 

Normally, there are 28 transitions 
allowed between the four sublevels 
and the strong triad, zDFG. But 
the fact that all but the lowest, or 
aF 3/2, level are inactive means that 
15 of the 28 possible transitions are 
ruled out. The remaining 13 are 
shown in the diagram. 

This greatly limits the changes the 
atom can make among the various 
energy states. For consider the vari- 
ety of jumps it is free to make in a 
hot gas when all 28 are available. 
Suppose it has just made the transi- 
tion from the aF 3/2 level to zD 5/2, 
and then dropped back to aF 5/2. 
Assume the atom desires to return 
to the ground state from where it 
came, just 0.012 volts away. But 
it cannot make this little leap di- 
rectly, for the lifetime of aF 5/2 is 
7 hours; that is, on the average 7 
hours would have to pass before the 
atom would make this transition 
spontaneously. Now 7 hours is like 
an eternity in the life of an atom 
when something is happening to it 
every millionth of a second. No 
sooner does it reach one energy level 
than a collision with an atom or elec- 
tron knocks it into another one. Or 
it is lifted to a higher state by ab- 
sorbing a quantum from the stream 
of energy sweeping past. Thus the 
atom might get back to the ground 
level by jumping from aF 5/2 to zF 
7/2, dropping down to aF 7/2, then 
going to zG 5/2, and from there finally 
making the transition back home to 
aF 3/2 by emitting the line 3,3883. 



SPACE HAS A SPECTRUM 



109 



In general, an atom in the atmos- 
phere of a star will spend most of its 
time giving and receiving energy, 
seldom remaining undisturbed for 
more than the tiniest fraction of a 
second. 

In interstellar space, however, ex- 
actly the opposite conditions prevail. 
Consider again the situation con- 
fronting an atom that has made the 
transition of aF 3/2 to zD 3/2 to aF 
5/2. The prospect of returning to 
aF 3/2 by leaping from one level to 
another as before is now practically 
nil, for the necessary energy is no- 
where forthcoming. The atom is in 
somewhat the same predicament as 
a motorist who has run out of gaso- 
line on a lonely road in the middle of 
the night. The density of space is 
too low to make a collision likely for 
months or possibly years. Stellar 
radiation is so dilute that rescue by 
absorbing a quantum may be a mat- 
ter of centuries. A million years 
might pass before a cosmic ray scores 
a direct hit. In fact, there is but 
one passage to the ground state still 
open — the little “forbidden” transi- 
tion with a lifetime of 7 hours. Now 
this seems like an instant, as if time 
had been slowed down enormously. 
The impossibly difficult road in the 
atmosphere of a star becomes by far 
the quickest and easiest rout in inter- 
stellar space. 

The quantum jumps between sub- 
levels of the same term indicated by 
arrows in the diagram from aF 5/2 
— aF 3/2 and from aF 7/2 — aF 
5/2 produce emission lines at wave 
lengths 76,000 and 106,000 ang- 
stroms, almost out in the short-wave 
wireless region. 

The experience gained from the 
Ti II lines has been of the greatest 
value, for it has at least served as a 
sort of guide in unraveling some new 
data that at the present writing have 



astrophysicists pretty well stopped. 

In the beginning, they felt that 
putting their finger on the right in- 
terstellar lines to look for should be 
a fairly simple matter, since they 
would be ultimate lines of abundant 
elements and therefore as familiar as 
the members of their own family. 
But, as frequently happens, the way 
it turned out was not according to 
form at all. It is true that some of 
the predicted lines were found. But 
in addition, a whole batch of new 
ones turned up that nobody had ever 
heard of before. 

There is nothing that arouses the 
bloodhound in an astrophysicist like 
a strange spectrum line produced un- 
der extreme conditions. They got 
out their catalogue of wave lengths 
and their tables of multiplets. Any- 
thing that looked hopeful was given 
thorough consideration. They even 
calculated frequencies from known 
energy relations within the atom. 
After a while some of them began 
to wonder. They were faced with 
the fact that apparently no one in 
the history of spectroscopy had ever 
observed these lines either in absorp- 
tion or emission. 

Then several people seemed to get 
the same idea at once. They argued, 
perhaps these aren’t atomic lines at 
all. Perhaps they come from the 
next step up in the organization of 
matter — the diatomic molecule. 

This would seem like grasping at 
straws if it were not for the knowl- 
edge already gained from Ti II. 
Molecular spectra, it will be recalled, 
are characterized by long series of 
bands often composed of hundreds 
of fine lines closely packed together. 
Their complexity arises . from the 
wide variety of energy changes this 
dumbbell-shaped oscillator can 
make. In addition to undergoing 
changes in electron configuration 
similar to the atom, there are dozens 



110 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



of ways the two atoms can vibrate, 
and hundreds of speeds with which 
they can rotate. These changes all 
going on at once produce the long 
columns of lines thousands of ang- 
stroms in length. The different 
bands overlap, and their lines inter- 
mingle and get generally tangled up 
together. Analyzing band spectra is 
one of the most formidable jobs in 
spectroscopy. Those who make their 
living that way form a little closed 
group with a language unintelligi- 
ble to their associates, who gener- 
ally regard them with much the 
same awe that one feels toward a 
time bomb disposal squad. 

In interstellar space a molecule 
would be expected to behave in a 
manner corresponding precisely to 
the atom. That is, it would be in 
the lowest rotational level of the zero 
vibrational level of its ground elec- 
tronic state. Instead of being able 
to absorb hundreds or even thou- 
sands of lines it is now reduced to 
two or three at the most. 

The diatomic molecules most 
likely to occur are such ubiquitous 
compounds as OH, CH, NH, NaH, 
CO, and CN. Many hydrides would 
be expected since as we shall see 
later hydrogen is almost certainly 
the most abundant element of space. 

A comparison of the lowest lines 
of these compounds with the inter- 
stellar lines has resulted in several 
tentative identification. CH looks 
especially good. 

The evidence for the others is 
more uncertain. One line of CN and 
one of NaH agree well with inter- 
stellar lines, but there is always the 
danger of accidental coincidence 
when the identification rests with 
a single line. The case for NaH is 
strengthened a little by the fact that 
the two stars which show the sus- 
pected NaH line also have exception- 



ally strong detached sodium lines. 

But the most baffling lines of all 
are six that appear in the yellow' just 
on the limit of visibility. In con- 
trast to other interstellar lines, these 
are rather diffiuse instead of sharp 
and narrow. Astronomers at first 
were doubtful how to classify them, 
but evidence of their interstellar 
origin is now conclusive. They defi- 
nitely do not participate in the peri- 
odic shift of lines in the spectro- 
scopic binary Boss 6,142, and they 
show a decided increase in intensity 
with distance. 

So far not a single genuine clue to 
the origin of these lines exists. Their 
unusual width indicates they may be 
fragments of band spectra. Two of 
the lines are near calculated posi- 
tions of carbon-dioxide bands. But 
a spectogram of Chi 2 Orionis which 
covers the Venus bands shows no ab- 
sorption there, and the Venus bands 
should certainly be much stronger 
than any hypothetical bands of car- 
bon dioxide in the yellow. 

Attention has also been called to 
a fairly good agreement in position 
with a low-level line of molecular 
sodium, and the compound NaK. 
But so little is known of the struc- 
ture of these bands that the question 
is still wide open. 

A possibility that should not be 
overlooked is the absorption of light 
by solids. At room temperatures, 
solids ordinarily do not show narrow 
absorption lines, but near absolute 
zero many substances have sharp 
absorption lines that may be thought 
of as displaced atomic lines. Thus 
at 3 K clouds of dust particles or 
crystals in space might conceivable 
act as narrow absorbers. 

This is the type of thing in which 
a person in a related field can some- 
times make a contribution. Sugges- 
tions? 



SPACE HAS A SPECTRUM 



111 



Speaking of a temperature of in- 
terstellar space of 3 K can be very 
dangerous unless everyone knows 
what kind of a “temperature” we 
mean. Temperature is so closely 
tied up in our minds with hot and 
cold that we are unable to view it 
in the same aloof way we do other 
thermodynamic functions, such as 
entropy. But in between the stars, 
temperature becomes little more 
than abstraction, a parameter in a 
formula to be juggled around until it 
fits the facts. 

How easily the “temperature of 
interstellar space” can be twisted 
around to suit our purposes is shown 
by a recent report on the sodium 
clouds. The investigation w ; as made 
in the hope of finding out something 
about their size and velocity from 
the .width of the stationary D lines. 

After testing and rejecting several 
hypotheses a combination was found 
at last that accounted for the ob- 
served width of the lines without do- 
ing too much damage to current as- 
tronomical belief. Briefly, the widths 
could be explained on the basis of 
sodium clouds with linear dimensions 
of the order of 700 parsecs, which 
shared in the rotation of the galaxy 
and also had velocities up to 20 km 
per second. The density was set at 
three billionths of an atom per cubic 
centimeter. And the temperature 
came out somewhat higher than the 
value of 3 K previously quoted — 
just 43,097 degrees higher to be ex- 
act. The difference, of course, de- 
pends upon whether you are refer- 
ring to the temperature of the 
energy density of radiation or the ve- 
locities of the atoms themselves. 

Out of an investigation that 
started as a survey of a few faint 
nebulous patches with a small 
Schmidt camera, has come the dis- 
covery that in addition to the dark 



clouds of spac£ there are hundreds 
of square degrees of sky covered with 
very faintly luminous interstellar 
clouds. But so feeble is the light 
they emit that when attempts were 
made to photograph their spectrum 
in the usual way the lines were blot- 
ted out by the general illumination 
of the night sky. Not until a new 
type of nebular spectrograph of un- 
heard-of dimensions was developed 
was the amazing extent of these 
clouds revealed. By their study, ele- 
ments in space have been found 
which w'ere impossible to catch by 
the stationary-line method. 

The clouds were discerned origi- 
nally on direct photographs taken 
with an emulsion having a narrow 
band of high sensitivity at the red 
H Alpha line of hydrogen. It was 
previously known that these nebu- 
losities emitted this line, and by us- 
ing a special plate combined with a 
suitable filter, practically all the 
scattered skylight was eliminated, 
leaving only the light of H Alpha. 
In this way background fog was pre- 
vented, but the nebular emission 
was transmitted freely, and contrast 
between nebula and sky thus greatly 
enhanced. The photographs showed 
strong nebulosity among the stars 
that was almost completely absent 
on exposures made in light of other 
colors. 

More desirable than direct photo- 
graphs, however, w'as a method of 
obtaining the spectra of the nebu- 
losities. The instruments already on 
hand failed completely in this re- 
spect. What was needed most of all 
for this type of spectroscopy was 
speed. A very fast slit spectrograph 
was indicated with a short camera 
and strong dispersing units. 

The instrument finally evolved to 
fill this need, which is now in use by 
the Macdonald Observatory, is a 



112 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



150-foot nebular spectrograph built 
out in the open on a side of Mount 
Locke, Texas. It must cause the na- 
tives some tall speculation, for even 
an astronomer would be puzzled at 
his first glimpse. 

The speetograph is unique in that 
the slit is exposed directly to the 
sky; there is no large lens or mirror 
in the instrument. This method can 
be used to advantage when the ob- 
ject under observation covers an ap- 
preciable area in the sky, such as a 
nebula. And there is no collimating 
lens because the slit is so far from 
the prisms that the light is close 
enough to parallelism when it strikes 
the first prism face. 

Reduced to bare essentials to 
avoid confusion of detail, the spec- 
trograph consists of two piers set 75 
feet apart on the side of a hill. The 
upper pier carries a stationary flat 
mirror 24 inches in diameter. Be- 
hind it is a large wooden shield to 
cut off surrounding skylight. This 
mirror faces down the hill in the di- 
rection of the south pole. Halfway 
between the tw T o piers is another 
large shield with a square hole in the 
center that acts as a diaphragm. 

On the lower pier is a polar axis to 
which is attached in very compact 
form the vital optical parts of the 
spectrograph. The first part to re- 
ceive light from the sky is the “slit,” 
which consists of a long plane mir- 
ror over which can be drawn two 
adjustable curtains. By moving the 
curtains back and forth, a long, rec- 
tangular section of the mirror can 
be secured varying in width from 
zero to ten inches. Light from this 
mirror or slit is reflected up the hill 
to the second fixed mirror, and from 
there back down to the other end 
of the pier. Here it is received by 
two quartz prisms which bend the 



light or spectrum into a Schmidt 
camera of 94 mm. aperture. Also 
attached to the pier are guide tele- 
scopes, gears for orienting the mir- 
ror, a driving mechanism, et cetera. 

With this odd-looking but power- 
ful hillside spectrograph, 35 regions 
in the Milky Way have been ex- 
plored. Perhaps the chief result, 
among others, is to emphasize the 
enormous abundance of hydrogen 
scattered throughout space. In the 
large star clouds of the Cygnus and 
Sepheus regions, faint hydrogen 
emission is found over hundreds of 
square degrees. Apparently the gas 
is excited by the ultraviolet radia- 
tion from the many hot stars in 
these densely populated areas. This 
is absorbed by the Lyman series of 
hydrogen raising the atoms to a 
higher energy state. In returning to 
the ground level, some of the atoms 
will not drop back directly, but by 
an intermediate transition will emit 
the red H Alpha line of the Balmer 
series. Other lines found besides 
those of hydrogen are the forbidden 
line of O II at 3,727 and in rare cases 
lines of O III as well. 

The inhabitants of space now 
make up a fairly good-sized group, 
with others undoubtedly to be added 
in the future. Here is the census 
according to the latest count, which 
is admittedly of a highly uncertain 
nature. 

This is the population per cubic 
meter: 

Hydrogen atoms 8,000,000 

Electrons 7,000,000 

Na 103 

K 5 

Ca 3 

Ti One atom per 

50 cubic meters 



THE END. 



113 




fccmic ORBIT 

By D. B. Thompson 

The planet had an eccentric orbit, but for the two would-be con- 
querors of Earth, it had advantages. Minerals — a type of semi- 
intelligent life — But — the life was eccentric, too, in its own way — 

Illustrated by Schneeman 



Targ stirred restlessly and cuddled tiny cubbyhole, striking Targ’s 
closer to the furry side of his mother, moist, tender snout. He whimpered 
A blast of icy air swirled into the protestingly, and clung tighter to the 




114 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



warm, motionless bulk beside him. 

But he could sleep no longer. 
Something stirred deep within him — 
the age-old urge of his race to be up 
and doing at this season was not to 
be denied. Even as he raised his 
emaciated body from the fur-lined 
cubby, his mother stirred beside him 
and sat upright. She twisted her 
head about, gazing with her huge 
saucer eyes into the thin, biting wind. 
Then she saw that for which she 
searched — a faint glimmer of light 
shining through the ice-locked en- 
trance to the great communal cave. 
Spring had come to the world of the 
Tah-Shree. 

Swiftly the season advanced on 
the little world. While ice still cov- 
ered shaded areas, exuberant plant 
life sprang up, growing with phe- 
nomenal speed, as though impelled 
by some driving urge, some pressing 
necessity to reach maturity in the 
least possible time. 

Targ and his mother, Rrul, were 
no longer thin and weak; food care- 
fully stored the preceding summer 
had taken care of that. Targ seemed 
to be partaking of the same rushing 
growth as the plants, for this was the 
“year of growth” for thirteen-year- 
old Targ. Already, new, strange 
thoughts and feelings filled his be- 
ing as he observed his childhood 
playmate, Gura, who, in her eleventh 
summer, was also undergoing the 
rapid and bewildering changes of the 
“year of growth.” 

Now they were basking lazily in 
the warm sun, talking idly in their 
harsh, rasping speech. There was 
nothing needing their attention. 
They could, if they liked, search for 
the bright stones, some colored, some 
a dazzling white, with living images 
of the warm god pulsing within 
their icy interiors. Blit already they 
had many of these stored in the cun- 
ningly concealed cave near the 



“Place of Gods.” And soon their pe- 
riod of inactivity must end. The 
spring harvest would begin then, the 
first of two harvests which occurred 
annually on their world. 

“Mother,” asked Targ, “do you 
think there is any truth in the old 
stories of emissaries from the warm 
god coming to our land in queer, fly- 
ing caves? It is said that the caves 
are made of heavy, shiny material, 
such as we find in our deep caves 
and pound into trays for serving the 
gods. But the material of the flying 
caves is hard — too hard to shape by 
pounding. It is like the lumps which 
we pile around the altar. I think 
such heavy things could not fly.” 

“Oh, Targ! It is forbidden to say 
such things,” gasped Gura. 

“But, Gura—” 

“Gura is right, son,” chided Rrul. 
“Remember, I am the elder priestess 
of the warm god. I will not have 
you blaspheme.” 

“Mother Rrul!” interrupted Gura. 
“Someone comes. I feel his thoughts. 
It is Grak. He thinks that — Look 
quickly! Toward the place in the 
sky where the home of the cold god 
shines at night! A flying cave is 
coming!” 

“Well done, Gura,” approved 
Rrul. “You will be a good younger 
priestess. I, too, feel the thoughts 
now.” 

“I see it!” exclaimed Targ in vast 
astonishment. “It shines like the 
home of the warm god.” 

As he spoke, Grak rushed into the 
clearing, his hands extended high in 
salute to the priestess, his long, pre- 
hensile tail holding a broad leaf with 
which he shaded his fixed, staring 
eyes as he gazed in awe at the fiery 
visitant. 

“You have done well, Grak,” said 
Rrul. “We know of the coming of 
the flying cave. You may call the 
tribe to the Place of Gods.” 



ECCENTRIC ORBIT 



115 



“Thank you, mother,” answered 
Grak, filled with pride at the impor- 
tance of his mission. “It shall be 
done.” 

“Why is it, mother,” burst out 
Targ after Grak had left, “that we 
can sense the thoughts of all the 
members of the tribe, while they can 
feel each other’s scarcely at all, and 
ours only when we will it?” 

“It is a gift shared by all the de- 
scendants of the first priestess of the 
warm god. Only those having this 
gift can serve as priestess, or con- 
sort with a priestess.” 

“But what about Gura?” asked 
Targ. “She is not a descendant of 
the first priestess.” 

“It is a wise provision of the warm 
god,” said Rrul seriously, “that in 
every generation there shall be some 
outside our own family who have this 
gift. Such ones also become servants 
of the warm god.” She gazed fondly 
at the two youngsters. It was not 
by chance that from earliest child- 
hold Targ’s only constant compan- 
ion had been Gura. 

The trio continued to watch the 
approaching flying cave. It was now 
discernible as a long, gleaming ob- 
ject, oddly difficult to see. Its sur- 
face was a shimmering, inconstant 
blur of faintly prismatic light. 

“It is as the old legends describe 
it,” admitted Targ, somewhat 
abashed as he remembered his recent 
doubts. “See, it is going to land near 
the Place of Gods.” 

“Come,” commanded Rrul. “We 
must prepare to receive them.” 

The two men climbed out of the 
spaceship. They were a strangely 
assorted pair. Tall, handsome Roger 
Dolman, one-time pilot for Earth- 
Mars Transport, might still have 
been in the control cabin of one of 
the huge vessels had it not been for 
a fight in a Martian dive in which, 



accidentally, a fish-faced Venusian 
had died — the victim of a solid smash 
from Dolman’s fist. 

His companion. Dr. Ranee Gar- 
mer, short, heavy, and nearly bald, 
had been a brilliant research physi- 
cist on the staff of the Three Worlds 
Institute of Advanced Research. 
One day, quite unobtrusively, he had 
walked out of the institute building, 
carrying with him a copy of the plans 
for a secret weapon and disappeared 
from the sight of man. Subsequently 
he had purchased a ship, hiring Dol- 
man to act as pilot. 

“Boy, this is great!” exclaimed 
Dolman, inhaling hugely. “Clouds, 
lakes, mountains, green plants — just 
like old Earth. No trees, though. I 
wonder why? Well, whoever that 
old spaceman was who crashed on 
Hector so long ago back in the Solar 
System, he sure didn’t exaggerate 
any in describing this place. But 
imagine him making this trip in the 
kind of ship they had twelve hundred 
years ago!” 

“I wish that part of the log deal- 
ing with the natives hadn’t been de- 
stroyed,” replied Garmer. “But we 
know they thought their visitor was 
an emissary from the Sun god. That 
information should help us a great 
deal.” 

“We could have used more in- 
formation about the seasons, too,” 
continued the pilot. “He seemed to 
think there was something rather pe- 
culiar about them. But that 
shouldn't bother us much. He w T as 
here quite a while, so we can proba- 
bly stay here as long as we need to.” 

The two men did not wander far 
from their ship, and they kept their 
weapons handy, but they did not ex- 
pect any danger. The half-indeci- 
pherable log they had found in the 
wrecked ship on the little asteroid 
had been specific on that point. 

“Why are we so heavy, doc?” que- 



116 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ried Dolman. “This planet is no 
larger than Mars, but I feel almost 
as heavy as on Earth.” 

“Heavy metals, of course,” replied 
Garmer, “just as the log said. This 
planet has a very high density, which 
offsets its small size in the matter of 
gravitational attraction. That is one 
reason why I selected it as the place 
to build the vibrator. The weapon 
requires a great deal of heavy metal 
of many kinds. We should find all 
we need here without much diffi- 
culty. 

“Hey, listen, boss,” interrupted 
the pilot. “Here comes the town 
band to welcome us.” 

Borne to their ears on the quiet 
air came a faint, insistent rhythm. 
Drums and rattles made up the back- 
ground for a shrill, reiterative pip- 
ing unlike anything they had ever 
heard. 

“Here they come!” exclaimed Dol- 
man. “What are they, anyway? I’ve 
seen some queer lookers in the Solar 
System, but nothing like these 
babies!” 

“I think you have,” replied Gar- 
mer, “in the Tropical Animals Pre- 
serve back on Earth. Little ratlike 
primates with huge fixed eyes. They 
are called tarsiers, and are quite gen- 
erally supposed to be the direct an- 
cestors of man, although many stu- 
dents of evolution deny this. Evi- 
dently on this planet they simply 
grew up, both in size and intelligence, 
without going through the intermedi- 
ate steps of developing into men.” 

“Intelligence? Do you mean you 
think they are as intelligent as 
men?” 

“Probably not, but they must 
have considerable intelligence to pro- 
duce such music. But we shall soon 
know. Watch them closely, but 
don't do anything to stir up trou- 
ble.” 

The procession was worth watch- 



ing. Old Rrul led the way, carrying 
in her hands a silvery tray on which 
were several piles of sparkling stones. 
Flanking her, but a half step behind, 
marched Targ and Gura, carrying 
trays of red and green stones. Each 
carried a huge leaf, held by their tails 
in such a manner as to shade Rrul 
from the sun. Beside them, in turn, 
walked two smaller youngsters, car- 
rying leaves to shade Gura and Targ, 
and at the same time playing on long 
thin reeds from which came the elu- 
sive, reiterative piping which the two 
adventurers had previously heard. 
The rest of the tribe followed, march- 
ing three abreast. The center mem- 
ber of each rank carried a tray filled 
with purple or white crystals, or 
heaps of food. Beside them marched 
the musicians, carrying leaf shades 
and marking the rhythm with drums 
and rattles made from gourds. 

“Look at those gems, doc,” ex- 
claimed Dolman. "Diamonds, ru- 
bies, and emeralds.” 

“I think you are right,” assented 
Garmer. “They are probably much 
more plentiful here than on any of 
the three worlds.” 

“What are we waiting for, then?” 
demanded the pilot. “You wouldn’t 
have passed lip a chance like this 
back in the Solar System. We spent 
six months accumulating enough 
cash to equip this ship. These gems 
would be worth ten times as much 
as all we took in that time.” 

“The money we took during those 
six months was necessary to my plan. 
These jewels would be of no value to 
us here. You seem to forget that we 
made this long trip for just one pur- 
pose — to construct a vibrator. With 
that I can force the three worlds to 
come to my terms. Then I shall rule 
the System. What are a few paltry 
gems compared to that?” 

“I still can’t see it, doc,” objected 
Dolman. “The three worlds all have 



ECCENTRIC ORBIT 



117 



vibrators of their own, don’t they? 
So the best we can get is a stalemate, 
isn’t it?” 

“Imbecile!” stormed Garmer. “Of 
course they have vibrators! But 
they will not dare use them because 
they would destroy their own worlds 
if they did. They will surrender to 
me because they know that I will 
stop at nothing to gain my ends!” 

“0. K., doc. Don’t get so excited 
— you’ll be bursting a blood vessel 
one of these days.” To himself he 
muttered, “Why did I ever team up 
with this megalomaniac, anyway? 
I’d be better off roughing it in the 
asteroids.” Aloud he continued, “We 
had better pay a little attention to 
the monks. They seem to be get- 
ting restless.” 

Dolman was right. The clear, 
unshielded thoughts of the men had 
reached the brains of even the dull- 
est of the Tah-Shree. True, very lit- 
tle of it had been clear to them, but 
they had expected something very 
different from the emissaries of the 
warm god. 

“Mother!” burst out Targ. “These 
are not — ” 

“Silence!” ordered Rrul sharply. 
“Do not doubt. Oh, my people,” she 
continued, turning to the assembled 
tribe. “The emissaries think 
thoughts we understand not in order 
to test our faith. Let us place our 
offerings at their feet.” 

Suiting her actions to her words, 
she placed the tray of gems at the 
feet of Roger, saluted with both 
hands, and withdrew. As she backed 
ceremoniously away and others took 
her place, the pilot, with a bewil- 
dered look on his face, began to 
speak, accompanying his words with 
unmistakable gestures. 

“The sun god is pleased with his 
people,” he orated in ringing tones. 
He pointed to the setting sun, then 



to the assembled Tah-Shree. “He is 
thankful for the offerings of the 
stones of ice with the image of the 
god himself burning within them. 
He is thankful, too, for the red stones 
and the green, for the pointed crys- 
tals and the white and purple, and 
for the foods from your stores.” He 
pointed in turn to the diamonds, ru- 
bies, emeralds, quartz crystals, and 
the food, as the natives placed their 
offerings before him. The doctor 
stared at him in astonishment, but 
said nothing. 

“Go, now,” continued Dolman, 
pointing to the natives, then waving 
his arms in the direction from which 
they had come. “Come back again 
when the god is highest in his 
heaven.” He pointed to the sun, 
swung his arms around in a circle 
and pointed to the zenith. “Then 
by our magic powers we shall send 
your offerings to the sun god.” He 
touched the gems, then made a mo- 
tion as if hurling them toward the 
sun. 

Rrul, Gura, and Targ stepped for- 
ward, saluted with both hands; then, 
with arms upraised, turned to the 
waiting tribe. 

“Hah -yah! Hah -yah! Hah-yo/i/” 
roared the natives in unison. Their 
god was pleased, and they were 
happy. Forgotten were the trouble- 
some, half-perceived thoughts which 
had reached them when they had 
first entered the valley. They 
trouped rapidly away, talking excit- 
edly in their harsh, hissing speech of 
the wonders they had beheld, and 
were to behold on the morrow. 

Garmer looked at his big compan- 
ion curiously. “You certain put that 
over very well. I think they actu- 
ally understood the meaning of your 
gestures. How did you happen to 
think of it?” 

“I ... I don’t know exactly,” 
confessed Dolman with a sheepish 



118 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



grin. “It just seemed to come to me. 
I felt for a moment that I really was 
a representative of their god.” 
“Don’t be ridiculous!’’ snapped 
Garmer. “You fooled the natives, 
all right, but don’t think you can 
fool me.” 

“I don’t think so, doc. You know 
I wouldn’t try to fool you, anyway.” 
“You promised to send the offer- 
ings to the sun god, too,” continued 
Garmer. “How do you propose to 
keep that, promise?” 

“I’ve been thinking about that. 
It will be easy enough. We’ll use a 
big signal rocket. Dump some 
stones in the space around the flare 
mechanism and shoot the rocket up 
about twenty miles, straight at the 
sun. When the flare goes off the 
monks will think the offerings have 
reached the sun.” 

“Yes. That should work very well. 
We shall do it.” 

“Shall we send all the stuff up in 
the rocket?” asked Roger, watching 
Garmer closely as he spoke. “You 
said yourself that we would have no 
use for the gems here.” 

“Since they gave us the jewels, we 
would be foolish to throw them 
away,” replied Garmer stiffly. “Put 
in only the quartz crystals. The oth- 
ers may be of value to us when we re- 
turn to our own worlds.” 

Roger grinned but said nothing. 

In* the meantime, Rrul and the 
two young Tah-Sliree had reached 
the entrance to the big cave. Targ 
had kept silent, as his mother had 
ordered, while they were in the pres- 
ence of the men and the other mem- 
bers of the tribe. Now, as they sat 
in the twilight, he was bursting with 
curiosity. 

“Why did you pretend to believe 
that those visitors from the sky are 
emissaries from the warm god?” he 
demanded. 



“Perhaps, my son, they really do 
come from the warm god,” replied 
Rrul. 

“Then why did they think those 
strange thoughts about three worlds 
far, far away? Why did they speak 
of taking the holy stones for them- 
selves? Why did they talk of de- 
stroying the people of those worlds 
with a great magic which would 
shake a whole world to pieces? Why 
did they talk of making that magic 
weapon here?” 

“Perhaps they sent those thoughts 
to test us, as I told our people,” per- 
sisted the old priestess. 

“No, mother, for then you would 
not have dared to place those 
thoughts in the mind of the big one 
about the warm god being pleased, 
and about sending the stones to him, 
if you really believed the visitors 
were sent here by the warm god!” 

“Very good, Targ,” approved Rrul. 

“And Targ was partly right about 
the old legends, too,” put in Gura. 
“For, before we reached the place of 
their flying cave the big one spoke 
of another who came here long, long 
ago, and who was killed when he 
landed on a tiny w orld called Hector, 
far away. It is very strange to think 
of other worlds than ours, inhabited 
by strange beings, all doing wonder- 
ful things. Perhaps even if these 
visitors are not emissaries, we could 
learn much from them if they would 
but teach us.” 

“Perhaps they will teach us,” re- 
plied Rrul enigmatically. 

The wahm god had journeyed 
across the sky twenty times since the 
coming of the flying cave. Under the 
leadership of Rrul, Targ and Gura, 
the way of life of the Tah-Shree had 
undergone a radical change, brought 
about by the coming of the visitors 
from space. 

Targ walked forward to meet Dol- 



ECCENTRIC ORBIT 



119 



man as the latter came down the 
long ramp leading into the depths of 
the cave. Down here, great lumps of 
heavy, hard metal — too hard for the 
natives to use — could be found in 
abundance. 

“Where are the miners?” de- 
manded Roger, speaking slowly as 
he struggled with the harsh, uncouth 
speech of the Tah-Shree. 

“Rahzhuh tests Targ’s faith,” re- 
sponded the youngster quickly. 
“Rahzhuh knows that today is the 
beginning of the first harvest. The 
food must be gathered at once, for 
the burning time, when the warm 
god comes close to the land of his 
people, is very near. And because 
Rahzhuh and Bawz have made us 
we-bars and kars, the harvest will 
be easy this year. The Tah-Shree 
are very grateful to Rahzhuh and 
Bawz.” 

Dolman shrugged and retraced his 
steps toward the large side cave in 
which the Earthmen were living. A 
strange thought had come to him 
with increasing frequency of late. It 
sometimes seemed that, instead of 
using the natives for their own pur- 
poses, he and Garmer were actually 
being used by them in some unfath- 
omable plan of their own. 

Targ stopped at the entrance to 
the compartment. “Targ will re- 
main outside,” he stated. “It is very 
dull for Targ when Rahzhuh and 
Bawz speak in the language of the 
gods. Targ cannot understand the 
strange words.” 

“Hm-m-m, I wonder,” muttered 
Dolman. “I’m not so sure of that.” 

Garmer looked up in surprise as 
his big pilot entered. “Why aren’t 
you at the mine?” he snapped. 

“Bawz is only having his little 
joke,” replied Dolman with a grin. 
“He knows that it’s time for the first 
harvest, which must be finished 
quickly, -because our celestial master. 



the warm god, is getting all het up. 
The burning time is about due. Oh, 
yeah — Targ sends the thanks of the 
tribe for the wheelbarrows and carts, 
which will be a big help in the har- 
vest.” 

“W 7 hy didn’t you make them 
work?” demanded Garmer. “What 
do we care about their harvest? I 
need — ” 

“You need their labor,” inter- 
rupted Dolman sharply. “Without 
it you can’t do a thing. The monks 
can’t work without food — and I hap- 
pen to know that they have enough 
for only a few days.” 

“All right,” replied Garmer testily. 
“I suppose you are right. But the 
work is going too slowly. This burn- 
ing time must be midsummer. That 
means we haven’t much time before 
winter. And some of the last steps 

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130 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



in constructing the vibrator must be 
carried on in the open — too danger- 
ous in an inclosed space. There must 
be no more delays!” 

“We might speed things up a bit 
by assembling a couple more atomo- 
tors and mounting them so as to pull 
a train of cars,” suggested Dolman. 
“Targ and that girl friend of his, 
Gura, could probably handle them 
satisfactorily. They are a smart pair 
of youngsters, even if they are only a 
couple of owl-eyed monkeys.” 

“Do it at once. Of course Targ 
and Gura can handle them. Any boy 
of ten back on Earth can build and 
operate a turbine-type atomotor.” 
“Sure, doc. It is a lot different 
from the old days. I read once that 
the first atomic-power plant was 
built in the center of a mountain a 
mile through for protection from 
hard radiation. And it took a dozen 
or so atomic engineers to run it. 
Even then they took a swell chance 
of getting killed.” 

Dolman had been right. Targ 
and Gura could handle the trains 
easily. They presented a strange 
sight — two long-tailed, saucer-eyed 
primates, driving the atomotor-pow- 
ered, all-metal trains through the 
tortuous, sloping tunnel which led 
to the deep mines as calmly as if they 
had lived all their lives amid the 
wonders of the distant civilized 
worlds of the Solar System, 

Their conversation would have in- 
terested Dolman very much had he 
been there to hear it. For one thing, 
much of it was in garbled English, al- 
though neither of the men had ever 
heard them use over twenty English 
words — the names of tools and arti- 
cles which had no equivalent in Tah- 
Shree. The long breaks in oral 
speech, which did not seem to inter- 
rupt the conversation at all, would 
have interested Roger, too, for he 



wondered occasionally at the facility 
with which he had learned Tah-Shree 
under the tutelage of Targ and Gura. 
Often, he was sure, they had fur- 
nished him with a needed word al- 
most before he was sure himself that 
he needed it. But most of all, he 
would have been interested in the 
turn taken by the conversation itself. 
It would have proved a striking con- 
firmation of some of his own half- 
formed ideas. 

“Targ,” asked Gura, “why does 
Mother Rrul let the men make our 
people work so hard? The Tah- 
Shree used to be free and happy, 
picking fruits, hunting bright stones, 
dancing to the music of drums and 
pipes, growing strong and healthy in 
the life-giving rays from the abode 
of the warm god. Now they dig and 
pound and shovel all day in the dark 
caves to get the hard metal that 
Bawz wants. And he uses it to make 
a magic weapon to force his own peo- 
ple to work for him when he goes 
back!” 

“I used to wonder, too, Gura. But 
I think I know now. These wonder- 
ful trains have convinced me that she 
is right. Mother wants the Tah- 
Shree to grow into a mighty race — 
as great as that of men . But no race 
can become great if they spend all 
their time playing like little children. 
Mother wants our people to learn to 
work. She thinks that when we have 
learned to work as men work, we, 
too, can make the magic tools to do 
our work for us. Tools like this train. 
Just think how much kargsh we 
could haul with this train! In one 
load we could bring as much to the 
caves as all the tribe could carry — 
enough to feed the entire tribe for 
many, many days.” 

“But, Targ,” objected Gura, 
“think how much work was needed 
to get the hard metal to make this 
train and how many atomblast heat- 




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122 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ers and strange tools Rahzhuh had 
to make in order to shape the parts. 
As much work was done in building 
the train as would be needed to carry 
a trainload of kargsh to the caves in 
our baskets.” 

“But the train will last for many, 
many harvests. Only the atomotor 
needs to be rebuilt, and you know 
how easy that is. And today Rahz- 
huh is making a strange kind of pick 
which is driven by an atomotor. He 
calls it a drill. I think he can make 
many other tools to run in the same 
way. You have seen some of the 
wonderful things Bawz works with. 
And we know, now, that these things 
are really not magic at all; they are 
just tools men make to lighten their 
work. Some day we shall make such 
things ourselves.” 

“Why doesn’t Mother Rrul tell our 
people all this? They still think they 
are serving the warm god,” said 
Gura. 

“They are serving the warm god,” 
declared Targ. “Perhaps, as the 
members of the tribe believe, he even 
sent the men here to help us, al- 
though they think we are serving 
them.” 

“Why, I believe you are right, 
Targ,” exclaimed Gura admiringly. 
“Some day the Tgh-Shree shall fly 
to the world of men as these men 
flew to ours.” 

Dolman and Garmer stood on 
the natural balcony in the great cen- 
tral cavern, miles underground, 
watching the proceedings below 
them; the former with genuine inter- 
est. the latter with fuming, ill-con- 
cealed impatience. Only Dolman’s 
insistence that it was absolutely nec- 
essary had led him to come at all. 
As usual, Targ had assured Rahzhuh 
that, as emissaries of the warm god, 
he and Bawz knew all about the cere- 



mony, and then had naively pro- 
ceeded to tell them all about it. 

“Today,” he had said reverently, 
“the warm god comes closest to the 
land of his people. Tonight we thank 
him for his bounty and celebrate the 
start of his return toward the home 
of the cold god. We are very glad 
that his emissaries are here to help 
us worship.” 

“It was one hundred and ninety- 
seven Fahrenheit outside this after- 
noon,” Dolman was saying now. 
“Midsummer! And what a summer! 
It must rain a yard every night, 
when the temperature drops to a 
mere one hundred forty. Then it 
all evaporates the next day, only to 
come pouring down again the next 
night. We’re sure lucky to be down 
in these cool caves.” 

“Cool!” sputtered Garmer. “Do 
you call one hundred fifteen cool?” 

“Relatively so, yes. If you didn’t 
have that air conditioner that I fixed 
up in your laboratory with Targ’s 
help, it would be at least one hun- 
dred forty in there, so close to the 
surface,” said Dolman. “Quit crab- 
bing.” 

The event had now' reached its 
climax — the age-old ceremony de- 
picting the withdrawal of their fiery 
deity. But in one respect, at least, 
the present ceremony differed from 
any of its predecessors; for, in place 
of the traditional torches, the par- 
ticipants carried their miner’s head- 
lamps, fed by the undying fires of 
atomic disintegration. 

Old Rrul, solemn and majestic in 
the barbaric trappings of the elder 
priestess, advanced to bring the pe- 
riod of celebration to its close. She 
made a speech to the assembled Tah- 
Shree, a speech extolling the won- 
drous gifts brought by the emissar- 
ies. As she finished she raised her 
hands. 

“Hah-yoA/ Hah-?/ aft/ Hah -yah! 



ECCENTRIC ORBIT 



123 



The warm god is good!” roared the 
tribe in unison. 

“Go, now,” she concluded, “to 
your caves. Tomorrow you must 
work again in the deep places, for 
Bawz needs much shining rock for 
his work.” 

“Old fuzzy is pretty smart,” ob- 
served Dolman as the men made 
their way back to their quarters. 
“Some of the monks have been grum- 
bling about the hard going; now they 
will work harder than ever.” To 
himself he added, “I wonder why she 
does it? I’m almost certain the old 
monks know we are not representa- 
tives of the sun god, yet she appar- 
ently does everything she can to help 
us.” 

As the days passed, the tempera- 
ture slowly dropped. The terrific 
storms became less violent, and 
finally ceased altogether. With in- 
credible speed, new and different 
vegetation sprang up to replace that 
which had disappeared during the 
terrible heat of the burning time. 
Except for raised and rocky areas, 
the space about the caves became an 
impenetrable mass of writhing, 
twisting plant life, drawing susten- 
ance from the putrescent remains of 
the spring growth. Even the path 
from the cave mouth to the space- 
ship was barred by the surging, liv- 
ing sea. 

The Tah-Shree were openly jubi- 
lant. 

“The second harvest will be very 
large,” Targ exulted as he and Roger 
stood at the cave entrance, gazing 
at the extraordinary growth. “My 
people praise the warm god daily and 
give thanks to him for sending Bawz 
and Rahzhuh to us. You have 
brought us great good fortune.” 

Dolman, however, paid little at- 
tention to Targ’s words. It was be- 
coming increasingly important that 



Garmer know how much time re- 
mained in which to complete the vi- 
brator, and the pilot was at a loss to 
find a way to ask about it. The ex- 
cuse of “testing the faith” of the ob- 
viously faithful natives was growing 
a little thin. Yet as emissaries of the 
warm god, the men were supposed to 
know the answer to all such ques- 
tions. Then, as usual, Targ solved 
the problem by volunteering the in- 
formation. 

“When the warm god has hidden 
his face twenty more times we shall 
begin the second harvest,” he said. 
“But we need not hurry this time, 
and only a few of the people will be 
needed. There will still remain 
thirty sleeps after the harvest begins 
before the cold god begins changing 
the water to rock.” 

“So, doc,” reported Dolman a little 
later, “we have fifty more of these 
eighteen-hour days before the first 
freeze. And I’ll make you a little 
bet right now that it cools off plenty 
fast here after that. This planet has 
the most cockeyed climate I ever ran 
into.” 

“The time is growing short, then,” 
answered Garmer. “I must have 
more platinum and iridium at once, 
too. For the last three days I haven’t 
received a gram of either one.” 

“I know it,” responded Dolman, 
but these monks still can’t seem to 
tell one metal from another. They 
are all either soft or hard to them; 
so, whenever they get any hard 
metal, it goes into one ear, and soft 
goes into the other. It is rather 
strange, though, that they always 
seem to drop off on something just 
when you need it most. Do you sup- 
pose that they can . . . er . . . 
that is, maybe they don’t want us 
to get the vibrator built in time, 
and—” 

“Nonsense! They don’t even 
know what we are doing! Even if 



m 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



they did, they would surely rather 
have us leave than stay, so that they 
can go back to their own way of liv- 
ing. You have read too many of 
those wild magazines of interstellar 
adventure for your own good. Now 
get back to the mines and see that 
I get the metals I need.” 

“O. K., doc. Y r ou’re still the boss, 
but I think you are wrong this time.” 

As time passed, it became increas- 
ingly evident that the vibrator would 
not be ready to assemble until long 
after the first ice formed. Garmer 
grew steadily more irritable and 
snapped at Dolman at the least ex- 
cuse. Yet it would be hard to place 
the blame on the hard-working na- 
tives. They were producing more 
metal than ever as they became more 
familiar with the strange new tools 
made for them by Dolman with the 
aid of Targ and Gura. Invariably, 
however, there was a deficiency of 
whatever element was most needed. 

And now 7 even Dolman, who had 
never cared at all whether or not the 
vibrator was built, began to lose his 
temper as he contemplated spending 
the winter on the little planet. He 
loved a crow'd. 

“How about starting on the fuel, 
doc?” he demanded one day. “It 
won’t do any good to complete the 
vibrator if we can’t take off for home 
when we get it finished.” 

“We must finish the w 7 eapon be- 
fore it gets too cold,” retorted Gar- 
mer. “If you take part of the na- 
tives now to mine the material for 
the fuel, it will delay finishing the 
vibrator at least two weeks, and that 
will be too long. After it is finished, 
ail the natives working together can 
mine all the fuel we need in three 
days. Now get back down there and 
see that I get the supplies I need.” 

Dolman went, muttering angrily 
to himself and cursing the day he had 



signed up as pilot for Garmer. 

But his troubles were far from 
ended. Suddenly, for no apparent 
reason, a series of small mishaps be- 
gan to occur. Gura’s train broke 
down twice, blocking the route to 
the mines completely each time for 
a period of half a day. Three atomo- 
tor drills were rendered useless when 
the shafts suddenly grew red-hot and 
jammed the mechanism irreparably. 
During the night a fall of rock from 
an important shaft of the mine com- 
pletely blocked that passage. 

“Bawz and Rahzhuh will stay with 
us while the warm god is away?” in- 
quired Targ innocently one day. 

Dolman swore luridly, and for the 
fourth time in an hour examined the 
thermometer outside the cave en- 
trance. It read -30 F. He returned 
to his task of making more atomblast 
heaters. 

The Tah-Shree were working only 
half time now in spite of all the 
two men could do. They w 7 ere eat- 
ing vast quantities of food and grow- 
ing so fat that, even when working, 
they could accomplish very little. 
For six days Garmer stormed and 
raged, demanding just a small quan- 
tity of molybdenum, which had, at 
one time, seemed more than plenti- 
ful. Dolman shouted and cursed, 
but it had not the slightest effect. 

“Rahzhuh makes a fine joke,” ob- 
served Targ after an especially vile 
bit of profanity on Dolman’s part. 
“Rahzhuh knows that the Tah-Shree 
must go to sleep very soon to aw r ait 
the return of the warm god. It is 
good of Rahzhuh to make jokes for 
the Tah-Shree.” 

Dolman gave up after that. 

“It’s sixty below outside, doc,” 
Dolman reported. “Snow has been 
falling without a let-up for ten days. 
You say it will take ten more days to 
complete the vibrator — the last five 



185 




outside the cave. With a dozen 
heaters going we couldn’t keep a big 
enough place clear of snow to assem- 
ble that thing. You might as well 
quit crabbing and forget about go- 
ing back before spring.” 

“I am already aware of that fact,” 
replied Garmer. “I have come to 
the conclusion that it is better so. 
If we had gone back too quickly, the 
police of the three w T orlds would still 
have been looking for us. If we 
spend the winter here they will think 
we have been lost in space. With 
the advantage of a surprise attack, 
we can take over the government of 
the Solar System without a strug-' 
gle.” 

“Have you any idea how long the 
winter lasts here?” queried Dolman. 

“No. Why? And what difference 
does it make?” 

“Well, the seasons here are due 
to the eccentricity of the orbit, like 
those of Mercury. The farther the 
planet gets from the Sun, the slower 
it will travel, so we can expect win- 
ter to be longer than summer — how 
much longer will depend on how far 
the planet gets from the Sun. We 
could have found the necessary data 
to determine all that by taking a se- 
ries of observations during the sum- 
mer, but we didn’t do it because we 
didn’t expect to stay here. We* 
couldn’t possibly take any shots of 
the Sun now because it never stops 
snowing. But I would guess that 
winter must be at least two or three 
times as long as the summer.” 

“All the better. That will give the 
three worlds all the more time to for- 
get us.” 

“It may get cold enough to liquefy 
the air,” pointed out Roger. 

“Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped 
Garmer. “The natives live through 
the winter.” 

“Yeah, but they hibernate. That 
is why they don’t know how long the 
cold season lasts.” 

“What difference will it make to 



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126 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



us as long as we have plenty of 
atomblast heaters? Even if the air 
freezes, we can still get plenty of it 
in these heated caves.” 

But Gartner figured without the 
natives. Ten days had passed — ten 
days during which the temperature 
just inside the entrance to the big 
cave had dropped to -120 F. Targ, 
hugging a small atomblast heater to 
his breast, glanced at the thermome- 
ter, which Dolman had taught him 
to read long ago, and turned toward 
the cave where the men were sleep- 
ing. He knew it must be much 
colder outside, for many heaters had 
been running in the caverns. But 
only five were functioning now, al- 
though the men did not know it. 
There were three in the laboratory 
wheye the men slept, and one in the 
cubby which Targ was sharing for 
the last time with old Rrul, and the 
one he carried. 

Shielding his tiny light carefully, 
he crept into the laboratory and 
turned off the three heaters there 
and carried them with him to his 
sleeping place. He extinguished the 
last two heaters. 

“It is very strange, mother,” he 
mumbled sleepily, “but I caught it 
clearly in the minds of both the 
sleeping men. Without the atom- 
blasts, when the cold god comes very 
near, they will die.” 

A spindly-legged, barrel-chested 
giant sat before the televise in 
Martes, capital of the Martian Fed- 
eration. He glanced at a chronome- 
ter and flicked a tiny switch. In- 
stantly the faces of an Earthman 
and a Venusian appeared on the 
screens before him; instantly, be- 
cause, carefully synchronized, the 
waves carrying the images had 
started on their way some minutes 
before. 



“Gentlemen, I have here an ex- 
cerpt from the report of the first In- 
terstellar Exploration Expedition, 
just received. As you know, the ob- 
served course of the ship carrying 
Dr. Garmer and his accomplice, 
Roger Dolman, could have led to but 
one destination, the star listed on 
Martian charts as R-5-23. The re- 
port shows that this star has one 
planet, with an orbit of cometary 
character. Orbital period is 3.82 
Martian years, observed tempera- 
ture at aphelion, very low, with oxy- 
gen, nitrogen and inert gases pres- 
ent in liquids or solid state. 
Estimated temperature at perihelion, 
200° F. 

“Obviously, gentlemen, no intelli- 
gent life is possible under such ex- 
tremes of temperature. We know 
that Garmer and Dolman could not 
have had sufficient fuel to reach any 
other planet, nor enough to return to 
the Solar System. Therefore we may 
conclude that we have seen the last 
of them. That is all, gentlemen.” 

The biting cold wind struck Targ's 
tender snout, but he did not whim- 
per. During the “year of growth,” 
he had attained his full height of five 
feet. He was no longer a child. 

Feebly he crawled from the tiny 
cubbyhole and started the atom- 
blast heater near the entrance. 
Someone stirred in the next small 
cave. A dreamy, glad light appeared 
in Targ’s great eyes. Starting an- 
other heater, he carried it quickly 
to Gura’s cave. This was to be his 
“year of mating.” 

Old Rrul looked down at the glow- 
ing heater. “This summer,” she said 
softly, “the Tah-Shree shall work for 
themselves. And with many heaters 
— who knows — perhaps we shall 
learn to stay awake even during the 
reign of the cold god.” 



THE END. 



137 







198 



sixth conn 

By flnson MacDonald 

Concluding a three-part novel of America conquered and uncon- 
quered by an unconventional army of halo-wearing tricksters! 

Illustrated by Schneeman 



The blitzkrieg of the Pan-Asian Empire 
destroyed the United States government so 
rapidly and so completely that no surren- 
der was involved. All that remains of legal 
government activity is the Citadel, a mili- 
tary research laboratory hidden under the 
Rockies, and manned by Major Ardmore, 
in command as the only remaining line of- 
ficer; Colonel Calhoun, mathematician; Dr. 
Brooks, biochemist; Dr. Wilkie, physicist; 
Brevet Lieutenant Thomas, Sergeant Scheer, 
master mechanic, and Graham, cook and 
former artist. The rest, of the personnel 
were killed in the catastrophic discovery of 
complete atomic power — power, transmuta- 
tion, gravity control, selective death ray — 
in short the key secret that makes the solu- 
tion of other problems in physics simple, a 
general solution of unified field. 

They have' a powerful weapon, but no 
army to use it. 

They dare not use it themselves for fear 
of brutal reprisal against the helpless ci- 
vilian populace, a people stripped of their 
freedom, registered, deliberately degraded. 
Their one chance to assemble is in church, 
as the Pan-Asians have heeded history and 
not interfered with local religions — well-be- 
haved slaves require religion. 

Ardmore plans an uprising patterned 
ufter the “Fifth Columns” that, destroyed 
European democracy, this to be a Sixth 
Column of patriots. He suggests the forma- 
tion of a new religion as a means of build- 
ing an organization undetected by the over- 
lords. Calhoun — irascible and unstable out- 
side of his mathematical genius — opposes 
it. but Ardmore diplomatically persuades 
him, as his genius is indispensable to the 
plan. 

They build up the. cult of Mota, with the 
mother temple overlying and concealing the 
Citadel, with branch temples throughout 
the country. The priests are commissioned 
in the United States -army and recruit for 
it. Each priest is equipped with an ornate, 
symbolic staff of office which is actually a 



powerful portable atomic power generator 
and projector, a strong weapon both in de- 
fense and attack. The temples cannot, be 
entered by those of Mongolian blood be- 
cause of the highly selective action of a 
lethal screen at each portal; concealed un- 
der each temple is a headquarters equipped 
with pararadio communication. 

The cult of Mota cultivates the compla- 
cent approval of the Pan-Asians by strict 
superficial compliance with their regulations 
and by aiding in the economic consolida- 
tion of the conquered country — they are 
open-handed with gold. 

At the same time they conduct an in- 
sidious indirect attack on the morale of the 
invaders — a morale based on Oriental 
“face.” The mysterious vowers. of the 
priests, totally foreign to the otherwise ex- 
cellent. science of the Asiatics, -shakes their 
all-important feeling of superiority and the 
increasing self-respect, of the whites makes 
them nervous. 

The Prince Royal decides to arrest the 
High Priest. Ardmore. He surrenders and 
uses it as, a means of still further upsetting 
the war lords. While he is under arrest a 
concerted raid is made on all temples; the 
priests submit meekly townest. That night , 
Ardmore and all his priests mysteriously 
and simultaneously break jail, using the 
powers concealed in each priestly staff. 
Ardmore takes shelter in the local temple 
in the Pan-Asian capital for much needed, 
sleep. He is awakened by an urgent call 
from.the Citadel; the Pan-Asians are round- 
ing up the congregations of Mota. 

They are faced with the immediate pros- 
pect of a mass slaughter of innocents, which 
the time factor leaves them helpless to 
prevent. 

PART III. 

Ardmore understood Thomas’ 
fear; he felt it himself. But he did 
not permit his expression to show it. 
“Take it easy, old son,” he said 



SIXTH COLUMN 



129 



in a gentle voice. “Nothing has hap- 
pened to our people yet — and I don’t 
think we’ll let anything happen.” 

“But, Chief, what are you going 
to do about it? There aren’t enough 
of us to stop them before they kill 
a lot of people.” 

“Not enough to do it directly, per- 
haps, but there is a way. You stick 
to collecting data and warn every- 
body not to go off half-cocked. I’ll 
call you back in about fifteen min- 
utes.” He flipped the disconnect 
switch before Thomas could answer. 

It required some thought. If he 
could equip each white man with a 
staff, it would be simple. The shield- 
ing effect from a staff could theoreti- 
cally protect a man against almost 
anything; except, perhaps, the infil- 
tration of poison gas. But the con- 
struction and repair department had 
been hard pushed to provide enough 
staffs to equip each new priest: one 
for each white man was out of the 
question, since they lacked factory 
mass production. Anyhow, he 
needed them now — this morning. 

A priest could extend his shield to 
include any given area or number of 
people, but in great extension the 
field became so tenuous that a well- 
thrown snowball would break 
through it. Nuts! 

He realized suddenly that he was 
thinking of the problem in direct 
terms again, in spite of his conscious 
knowledge that such an approach 
was futile. What he wanted was 
psychological jujitsu — some way to 
turn their own strength against 
them. Misdirection — that was the 
idea! Whatever it was they expected 
him to do, don’t do it! Do some- 
thing else. 

But what else? When he thought 
he had found an answer to that ques- 
tion he called Thomas to the reflec- 
tophone. “Jeff,” he said at once, 
“give me Circuit A.” 



He spoke for some minutes to his 
priests, slowly and in detail, and em- 
phasizing certain points. “Any ques- 
tions?” he then asked, and spent sev- 
eral more minutes in dealing with 
such as they were relayed in from 
the diocese stations. 

Ardmore and the local priest left 
the temple together. The priest at- 
tempted to persuade him to stay be- 
hind, but he brushed the objections 
aside. The priest was right; he knew 
in his heart that he should not take 
personal risks that could be avoided, 
but it was a luxury to be out from 
under Jeff Thomas’ restraining in- 
fluence. 

“How do you plan to find out 
where they have taken our people?” 
asked the priest. He w'as a former 
real-estate operator named Ward, a 
man of considerable native intelli- 
gence. Ardmore liked him. 

“Well, what would you do if I 
weren’t along?” 

“I don’t know . I suppose I would 
walk into a police station and try to 
scare the information out of the flat- 
face in charge.” 

“That’s sound enough. Where is 
one?” 

The central police station of the 
Pan-Asian police lay in the shadow 
of the palace, between eight and nine 
blocks to the south. They encoun- 
tered many Pan-Asians en route, but 
were not interfered with. The Asi- 
atics seemed dumfounded to see two 
priests of Mota striding along in ap- 
parent unconcern. Even those 
garbed as police appeared uncertain 
what to do, as if their instructions 
had not covered the circumstance. 

However, someone had phoned 
ahead; they were met on the steps 
by a nervous Asiatic officer who de- 
manded of them, "Surrender! You 
are under arrest!” 

They walked straight toward him. 



130 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Ward lilted one hand in blessing and 
intoned, “Peace! Take me to my 
people.” 

“Don’t you understand your own 
language?” snapped the Pan-Asian, 
his voice becoming shrill. “You are 
under arrest!” His hand crept nerv- 
ously toward his holster. 

“Your earthly weapons avail you 
not,” said Ardmore calmly, “in deal- 
ing with the great Lord Mota. He 
commands you to lead me to my 
people. Be warned!” He continued 
to advance until his personal screen 
pushed against the man's body. 

It — the disembodied pressure of 
the invisible screen — was more than 
the Pan-Asian could stand. He fell 
back a pace, jerked his sidearm clear 
and fired point-blank. The vortex 
ring struck harmlessly against the 
screen, was absorbed by it. 

“Lord Mota is impatient,” re- 
marked Ardmore in a mild tone. 
“Lead his servant, before the Lord 
Mota sucks the soul from your 
body.” He shifted to another effect, 
never before used in dealing with the 
Pan-Asians. 

The principle involved was very 
simple; a cylindrical tractor-pressor 
stasis was projected, forming in ef- 
fect a tube. Ardmore let it rest over 
the man’s face, then applied a trac- 
tor beam down the tube. The un- 
fortunate Pan-Asian gasped for air 
where there was no air and pawed 
at his face. When his nose began to 
bleed, Ardmore let up on him. 
“Where are my children?” he in- 
quired again as softly as before. 

The police officer, probably in 
sheer reflex, tried to run. Ardmore 
nailed him with a pressor beam 
against the door and again applied 
momentarily the suction tube, this 
time to the fellow’s midriff. “Where 
are they?” 

“In the park,” the man gasped, 
and regurgitated violently. 



They turned with leisured dig- 
nity and headed back down the 
steps, sweeping those who had 
pressed too close casually out of the 
way with the pressor beam. 

The park surrounded the erst- 
while State capitol building. They 
found the congregation herded into 
a hastily erected bull pen which was 
surrounded by ranks of Asiatic sol- 
diers. On a platform nearby, tech- 
nicians were installing television 
pick-up. It was easy to infer that 
another public “lesson” was to be 
given the serfs. Ardmore saw no 
evidence of the rather bulky appa- 
ratus used to produce the epilepto- 
genetic ray; either it had not been 
brought up, or some other method of 
execution was to be used — perhaps 
the soldiers present were an enor- 
mous firing squad. 

Momentarily he was tempted to 
use the staff to knock out all the sol- 
diers present — they were standing at 
ease with arms stacked, and it was 
conceivably possible that he might 
be able to do so before they could 
harm, not Ardmore, but the helpless 
members of the congregation. But 
he decided against it; he had been 
right when he gave his orders to his 
priests— this was a game of bluff; he 
could not combat all of the soldiers 
that the Pan-Asian authorities could 
bring to bear, yet he must get this 
crowd of whites safe inside the tem- 
ple. 

The massed white people in the 
bull pen recognized Ward, and per- 
haps the high priest as well; at least 
by reputation. He could see sud- 
den hope wipe despair from their 
faces — they surged expectantly. But 
he passed on by them with the brief- 
est of blessing. Ward in his train, and 
hope gave way to doubt and bewil- 
derment as they saw him stride up 
to the Pan- Asian commander and 



SIXTH COLUMN 



131 



offer him the same blessing. 

“Peace!” cried Ardmore. “I come 
to help you.” 

The Pan-Asian barked an order in 
his own tongue. Two Pan-Asians 
ran up to Ardmore and attempted to 
seize him. They slithered off the 
screen, tried again, and then stood 
looking to their superior officer for 
instruct ions, like a dog bewildered by 
an impossible command. 

Ardmore ignored them and con- 
tinued his progress until he stood im- 
mediately in front of the com- 
mander. “I am told that my people 
have sinned,” he announced. “The 
Lord Mota will deal with them.” 
Without waiting for an answer, he 
turned his back on the perplexed offi- 
cial and shouted, “In the name of 
Shaam, Lord of Peace!” and turned 
on the green ray from his staff. 

He played it over the imprisoned 
congregation. Down they went, as 
if the ray were a strong gale strik- 
ing a stand of wheat. In seconds’ 
time, every man, woman, and child 
lay limp on the ground, to all ap- 
pearance dead. Ardmore turned 
back to the Pan-Asian officer and 
bowed low. “The servant asks that 
this penance be accepted.” 

To say that the Oriental was dis- 
concerted is to expose the inade- 
quacy of language. He knew how to 
deal with opposition, but this whole- 
hearted co-operation left him with- 
out a plan; it was not in the rules. 

Ardmore left him no time to think 
of a plan. “The Lord Mota is not 
content,” he informed him, “and di- 
rects that I give you and your men 
presents — presents of gold!” 

With that he switched on a daz- 
zling white light and played it over 
the stacked arms of the soldiers to 
his right. Ward followed his mo- 
tions, giving his attention to the left 
ft ink. The stacked small arms 
AST— 9 



glowed and scintillated under the 
ray. Wherever it touched, the metal 
shone with a new luster, rich and 
ruddy. Gold! Raw gold! 

The Pan-Asian common soldier 
was paid no better than common sol- 
diers usually are. Their lines shifted 
uneasily, like race horses at the bar- 
rier. A sergeant stepped up to the 
weapons, examined one and held it 
up. He called out something in his 
own tongue, his voice showing high 
excitement. 

The soldiers broke ranks. 

They shouted and swarmed and 
danced. They fought each other for 
possession of the useless, precious 
weapons. They paid no attention to 
their officers; nor were their officers 
free of the gold fever. 

Ardmore looked at Ward and nod- 
ded. “Let ’em have it!” he com- 
manded, and turned his knockout 
ray on the Pan-Asian commander. 

The Asiatic toppled over without 
learning what had hit him, for his 
agonized attention was on his de- 
moralized command. Ward had 
gone to work on the staff officers. 

Ardmore gave the American pris- 
oners the counteracting effect while 
Ward disintegrated a large gate in 
the bull pen. There developed the 
most unexpected difficult part of the 
task — to persuade three hundred- 
odd dazed and disorganized people to 
listen and to move all in one direc- 
tion. But two loud voices and a 
fixed determination accomplished it. 
It w’as necessary to clear a path 
through the struggling, wealth-mad 
Orientals with the aid of the tractor 
and pressor beams. This gave Ard- 
more an idea; he used the beams on 
his own followers much as a goose 
girl touches up a flock of geese with 
her switch. 

They made the nine blocks to the 
temple in ten minutes, moving at a 



1*8 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




“When I give the signal by waking him," Major Ardmore 
explained, “we go into the act. The object is to 
scare him, make him lose face — but not kill him.” 



dogtrot that left many gasping and 
protesting. Blit they made it, made 
it without interruption by major 
force, although both Ward and Ard- 
more found it necessary to knock out 
an occasional Pan-Asian en route. 

Ardmore wiped sweat from his 
face when he finally stumbled in the 
temple door, sweat that was not due 
entirely to precipitate progress. 



“Ward,” he asked with a sigh, “have 
you got a drink in the place?” 

Thomas was calling him again be- 
fore he had had time to finish a ciga- 
rette. “Chief,” he said, “we are be- 
ginning to get some reports in. I 
thought you would like to know.” 

“Go ahead.” 

“It looks successful — so far. 



SIXTH COLUMN 



133 



Maybe twenty percent of the priests 
have reported so far through their 
bishops that they are back with their 
congregations.” 

“Any casualties?” 

“Yes. We lost the entire congre- 
gation in Charleston, South Caro- 
lina. They were dead before the 
priest got there. He tore into the 
Pan-Asians with his staff at full 
power and killed maybe two or three 
times as many of the apes as they 
had killed white men before he beat 
his way back to his temple and re- 
ported.” 

Ardmore shook his head at this. 
“Too bad. I’m sorry about his con- 
gregation, but I’m sorrier that he cut 
loose and killed a bunch of the Pan- 
Asians. It tips my hand before I’m 
ready.” 

“But, Chief, you can’t blame him 
— his loije was in that crowd!” 

“I’m not blaming him. Anyhow, 
it’s done — the gloves had to come off 
sooner or later; this just means that 
we will have to work a little faster. 
Any other trouble?” 

“Not much. Several places they 
fought a sort of rear-guard action 
getting back to the temples and lost 
some whites.” Ardmore saw a mes- 
senger in the screen hand a sheaf of 
flimsies to Thomas. Thomas glanced 
at them and continued, “A bunch 
more reports, Chief. Want to hear 
'em?” 

“No. Give me a consolidated re- 
port when they are all in. Or when 
most of them are in, not later than 
an hour from now. I’m cutting off.” 
The consolidated report showed 
that over ninety-seven percent of the 
members of the cult of Mota had 
been safely gathered into the tem- 
ples. Ardmore called a staff meeting 
and outlined his immediate plans. 
The meeting was, in effect, face 
to face, as Ardmore’s place at the 
conference table was taken by the 



pick-up and the screen of the re- 
ceiver. “We’ve had our hands 
forced,” he told them. “As you 
know, we had not expected to start 
action of our own volition for an- 
other two weeks, perhaps three. But 
we have no choice now. As I see it, 
we have to act and act so fast that 
we will always have the jump on 
them.” 

He threw the situation open to 
general discussion; there was agree- 
ment that immediate action was 
necessary, but some disagreement as 
to methods. After listening to their 
several opinions, Ardmore selected 
Disorganization Plan IV and told 
them to go ahead with preparations. 
“Remember,” he cautioned, “once 
we start, it’s too late to turn back. 
This thing moves fast and acceler- 
ates. How many basic weapons 
have been provided?" 

The “basic weapon” was the sim- 
plest Ledbetter projector that had 
been designed. It looked very much 
like a pistol and was designed to be 
used in similar fashion. It projected 
a directional beam of the primary 
Ledbetter effect in the frequency 
band fatal to those of Mongolian 
blood and none other. It could be 
used by a layman after three min- 
utes’ instruction, since all that was 
required was to point it and press a 
trigger, but it was practically fool- 
proof — the user literally could not 
harm a fly with it, much less a white 
man. But it was sudden death to 
Asiatics. 

The problem of manufacturing 
and distributing quantities of weap- 
ons to be used in the deciding con- 
flict had been difficult. The staffs 
used by the priests were out of the 
question; each was a precision in- 
strument comparable to a fine Swiss 
watch. Scheer himself had labori- 
ously fashioned by hand the most 
delicate parts of each staff and, nev- 



134 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ertheless, required the assistance of 
many other skilled metal smiths and 
tool makers to keep pace with the 
demand. It was all handwork; mass 
production was impossible until 
Americans once more controlled their 
own factories. 

Furthermore, detailed instruction 
and arduous supervised practice 
were indispensable in order for a 
priest to become even moderately 
skillful in the use of the remarkable 
powers of his staff. 

The basic weapon was the prag- 
matic answer. It was simple and 
rugged and contained no moving 
parts other than the activating 
switch, or trigger. Even so, it could 
not be manufactured in quantity at 
the Citadel, as there would have 
been no way to distribute the weap- 
ons to widely separated parts of the 
country without attracting un- 
healthy attention from the Pan- 
Asian authorities. Each priest car- 
ried to his own temple one sample of 
the basic weapon; it was then his re- 
sponsibility to locate and enlist, in 
his own community, workmen with 
the necessary skill in metalwork for 
producing the comparatively simple 
device. 

In the secret places down under- 
neath each temple, workmen had 
been busy for weeks at the task — 
grinding, polishing, shaping, repro- 
ducing by hand row on row of the 
lethal little gadgets. 

The supply staff officer gave Ard- 
more the information he had re- 
quested. “Very well,” Ardmore ac- 
knowledged, “that’s fewer weapons 
than we have members of our con- 
gregations, but it will have to do. 
There will be a lot of dead wood, 
anyway. This damned cult business 
has attracted every screwball and 
crackpot in the country — all the 
long-haired men and short-haired 



women. By the time we count them 
out we may have a few basic weap- 
ons left over. Which reminds me — 
if we do have any left over, there 
ought to be some women in every 
congregation who are young and 
strong and tough-minded enough to 
be useful in a fight. We’ll arm them. 
“About the crackpots — you’ll find a 
note in the general indoctrination 
plan as to how each priest is to break 
the news to his flock that the whole 
thing is really a hoax for military 
purposes; I want to add to it. Nine 
people out of ten will be overjoyed 
to hear the truth and strongly co- 
operative. That tenth one may 
cause trouble, get hysterical, maybe 
try to do a bunk out of the temple. 
Caution each priest, for God’s sake 
to be careful, break the news to them 
in small numbers at a time, and be 
ready to turn the sleepy ray on any- 
body that looks like a source of trou- 
ble. Then lock ’em up until the fun 
is over — we haven’t time to try to 
reorient the soft-minded. 

“Now get on with it. The priests 
will need the rest of the day to in- 
doctrinate their congrega tions and to 
get them organized into something 
resembling military lines. Thomas, 
I want the scout car assigned to- 
night to the job involving the Prince 
Royal to stop here first and pick me 
up. Have Wilkie and Scheer man 
it.” 

“Very well, sir. But I had planned 
to be in that car myself. Do you 
object to that slight change?” 

“I do,” Ardmore said dryly. “If 
you will look at Disorganization 
Plan IV you will see that it calls for 
the commanding officer to remain in 
the Citadel. Since I am already 
here, outside the Citadel, you will 
remain in my place.” 

“But, Chief—” 

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136 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



us, not at this stage of the game. 
Now pipe down.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Ardmore was called back to the 
reflectophone later that morning. 
The face of the headquarters com- 
munication watch officer peered out 
of the screen at him. “Oh — Major 
Ardmore, Salt Lake City is trying to 
reach you with a priority routing.” 

“Put them on.” 

The face gave way to that of the 
priest at Salt Lake City. “Chief,” 
lie began, “we’ve got a most extr'or- 
dinary prisoner; I'm of the opinion 
you’d better question him yourself.” 

“I’m short of time. Why?" 

“Well, he’s a Pan-Asian, but 
claims he is a white man and that 
you will know r him. The funny thing 
about it is that he got past our 
screen. I thought that was impossi- 
ble.” 

“So it is. Let me see him.” 

It was Downer, as Ardmore had 
begun to suspect. Ardmore intro- 
duced him to the local priest and as- 
sured that official that his screens 
had not failed him. “Now, captain, 
out with it — ” 

“Sir, I decided to come in and re- 
port to you in detail because things 
are coming to a head.” 

“I know it. Give me all the de- 
tails you can.” 

“I will, sir. I wonder if you have 
any idea how much damage you’ve 
done the enemy already — their mo- 
rale is cracking up like rotten ice in 
a thaw. They are all nervous, un- 
certain of themselves. What hap- 
pened?” 

Ardmore sketched out briefly the 
events of the past twenty-four hours, 
his own arrest, the arrest of the 
priests, the arrest of the entire cult 
of Mota, and the subsequent deliv- 
ery. Downer nodded. “That ex- 
plains it. I couldn’t really tell what 



had happened; they never tell a com- 
mon soldier anything — but I could 
see them going to pieces, and I 
thought you had better know.” 
“What happened?” 

“Well — I guess I had better just 
tell you what I saw, and let you 
make your own inferences. The sec- 
ond battalion of the Dragon Regi- 
ment at Salt Lake City is under ar- 
rest. I heard a rumor that every 
officer in it had committed suicide. 
I suppose that is the outfit that let 
the local congregation escape, but I 
don’t know.” 

“Probably. Go ahead.” 

“All I know is what I savV. They 
were marched in about the middle 
of the morning with their banners 
reversed and confined to their bar- 
racks, with a heavy guard around 
the buildings. But that’s not all. It 
affects more than the one outfit un- 
der arrest. Chief, you know how an 
entire regiment will go to pieces if 
the colonel starts losing his grip?” 
“I do. Is that the way they act?” 
“Yes — at least the command sta- 
tioned at Salt Lake City. I’m damn 
well certain that the big shot there 
is afraid of something he can t un- 
derstand, and his fear has infected 
his troops, right down to the ordi- 
nary soldiers. Suicides, lots of ’em, 
even among the common soldiers. A 
man will get moody for about a day, 
then sit down facing toward the Pa- 
cific and rip out his guts. 

“But here is the tip-off, the thing 
that proves that morale is bad all 
over the country. There has been a 
general order issued by the Prince 
Royal, in the name of the Heavenly 
Emperor, forbidding any more hon- 
orable suicides.” 

“What effect did that have?” 
“Too soon to tell — it just came 
out today. But you don’t appreci- 
ate what that means. Chief. You 
have to live among these people, as 



SIXTH COLUMN 



187 



I have, to appreciate it. With the 
Pan-Asians, everything is face — ev- 
erything. They care more for ap- 
pearances than a white man can pos- 
sibly understand. To tell a man who 
has lost face that he can’t balance 
the books and get square with his 
ancestors by committing suicide is 
to take the heart right out of him. 
It jeopardizes his most precious pos- 
session . 

“You can count on it that the 
Prince Royal is scared, too, or he 
would never have resorted to any 
such measures. He must have lost 
an incredible number of his officers 
lately ever to have thought of such 
a thing.” 

"That is reassuring. Before this 
night is out, I think we will have 
damaged their morale at least as 
much more as we have already. So 
you think we’ve got them on the 
run?” 

“I didn’t say that, major— don’t 
ever think so. These damned yellow 
baboons” — he spoke quite earnestly, 
evidently forgetting his own exact 
physical resemblance to the Asiatics 
— “are just about four times as 
deadly and dangerous in their pres- 
ent frames of mind as they were 
when they were cock o’ the walk. 
They are likely to run amuck with 
just a slight push and start slaugh- 
tering whites right and left — babies, 
women — indiscriminately!” 

“Hm-m-m. Any recommenda- 
tions?” 

“Yes, Chief, I have. Hit ’em with 
everything you’ve got just as soon 
as possible, and before they start in 
on a general massacre. You’ve got 
’em softened up now — sock it to ’em! 
— before they have time to think 
about the general population. Oth- 
erwise you’ll have a blood letting 
that will make the Collapse look like 
a tea party. 

“That’s the olher reason I came 



in,” he added. “I didn’t want to find 
myself ordered out to butcher my 
own kind.” 

Downer’s report left Ardmore 
plenty to worry about. He conceded 
that Downer was probably right in 
his judgment of the workings of the 
Oriental mind. The thing that. 
Downer warned against — retaliation 
against the civilian population — al- 
ways had been the key to the whole 
problem — that was why the religion 
of Mota had been founded; because 
they dare not strike directly for fear 
of systematic retaliation against the 
helpless. Now — if Downer was a 
judge — in attacking indirectly, Ard- 
more had rendered an hysterical re- 
taliation almost as probable. 

Should he call off Plan IV and at- 
tack today? 

No — it simply was not practica- 
ble. The priests had to have a few 
hours at least in which to organize 
the men of their flocks into guerrilla 
warriors. That being the case, one 
might as well go ahead with Plan IV 
and soften up the war lords still fur- 
ther. Once it was under way, the 
Pan-Asians would be much too busy 
to plan massacres. 

A small, neat scout car dropped 
from a great height and settled 
softly and noiselessly on the roof of 
the temple in the capital city of the 
Prince Royal. Ardmore stepped up 
to it as the wide door in its side 
opened and Wilkie climbed out. He 
saluted. “Howdy, Chief!” 

“H’lo, Bob. Right on time, I see 
— just midnight. Think you were 
spotted?” 

“I don’t think so; at least, no one 
turned a spot on us. And we cruised 
high and fast; this gravitie control is 
great stuff.” As they climbed in, 
Scheer gave his CO a brief nod ac- 
companied by, “Evening, sir,” with 



138 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



his hands still on the controls. As 
soon as the safety belts were buck- 
led he shot the car vertically into 
the air. 

“Orders, sir?” 

“Roof of the palace — and be care- 
ful.” 

Without lights, at great speed, 
with no power source the enemy 
could detect by eye or instrument, 
the little car plummeted to the roof 
designated. Wilkie started to open 
the door. Ardmore checked him. 
“‘Look around first.” 

An Asiatic cruiser, on routine pa- 
trol over the residence of the vice- 
royal, changed course and stabbed 
out with a searchlight. The beam 
felt around the roof and settled on 
the scout car. 

“Can you hit him at this range?” 
inquired Ardmore, whispering un- 
necessarily. 

“Easiest thing in the world, 
Chief.” Cross hairs matched on the 
target; Wilkie depressed his thumb. 
Nothing seemed to happen, but the 
beam of the searchlight swept on 
past them. 

“Are you sure you hit him?” Ard- 
more inquired doubtfully. 

“Certain. That ship’ll go ahead 
on automatic control till her fuel 
gives out — maybe a thousand miles. 
But it’s a dead hand at the helm.” 

“O. K. Scheer, you take Wilkie’s 
place at the projector. Don’t let fly 
unless you are spotted. If we aren’t 
back in thirty minutes, return to the 
Citadel. Come on, Wilkie — now for 
a little hocus-pocus.” 

Scheer acknowledged the order, 
but it was evident from the way his 
powerful jaw muscles worked that 
he did not like it. Ardmore and Wil- 
kie, each attired in the full regalia of 
a priest, moved out across the roof 
in search of a way down. Ardmore 
kept his staff set and projecting in 
the wave band to which Mongolians 



were sensitive, but at a power-level 
anaesthetic rather than lethal in its 
effect. The entire palace had been 
radiated with a cone of these fre- 
quencies before they had landed, us- 
ing the much more powerful projec- 
tor mounted in the scout car. Pre- 
sumably every Asiatic in the build- 
ing was unconscious — Ardmore was 
not taking unnecessary chances. 

They found an access door to the 
roof, which saved them cutting a 
hole, and crept down a steep iron 
stairway intended only for janitors 
and repairmen. Once inside, Ard- 
more had trouble orienting himself 
and feared that he would be forced 
to find a Pan-Asian, resuscitate him, 
and wring the location of the 
Prince’s private chambers out of him 
by most ungentle methods. But 
luck favored them; he happened on 
the right floor and correctly inferred 
the portal of the Prince’s apartment 
by the size and nature of the guard 
collapsed outside of it. 

The door was not locked; the 
Prince depended on a military watch 
being kept rather than keys and 
bolts — he had never turned a key in 
his life. They found him lying in 
his bed, a book fallen from his limp 
fingers. A personal attendant lay 
crumpled in each of the four corners 
of the spacious room. 

Wilkie eyed the Prince with inter- 
est. “So that’s his nibs. What do 
we do now, major?” 

“You get on one side of the bed; 
I’ll get on the other. I want him to 
be forced to divide his attention two 
ways. And stand up close so that 
he will have to look up at you. I’ll 
talk all the business, but you throw 
in a remark or two every now and 
then to force him to split his atten- 
tion.” 

“What sort of a remark?” 

“Just priestly mumbo-jumbo. Im- 






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pressive and no real meaning. Can 
you do it?” 

“I think so — I used to sell maga- 
zine subscriptions.” 

“O. Iv. This guy is a tough nut — 
really tough. I am going to try to 
get at him with the two basic con- 
genital fears common to everybody, 
fear of . constriction and fear of fall- 
ing. I could handle it with my staff, 
but it will be simpler if you do it 
with yours. Do you think you can 
follow my motions and catch what I 
want done?” 

“Can you make it a little clearer 
than that?" 

Ardmore explained in detail, then 
added, “All right — let’s get busy. 
Take your place.” He turned on the 
four colored lights of his staff. Wil- 
kie did likewise. Ardmore stepped 
across the room and switched out the 
lights of the room. 

"When the I’an-Asian Prince 
Royal, Grandson of the Heavenly 
One and ruler in his name of the Im- 
perial Western Realm, came to his 
senses, he saw standing over him in 
the darkness two impressive figures. 
The taller was garbed in robes of 
shimmering, milky luminescence. 
His turban, too, glowecUwith a soft 
white light of its own, and floating 
over his head was a hoop of white 
fire — a halo. 

The staff in liis left hand streamed 
light from all four faces of its cubi- 
cal capital — ruby, golden, emerald, 
and sapphire. 

The second figure was like the 
first, save that his robes glowed 
ruddy like iron on anvil. The face 
of each was partially illuminated by 
the rays from their wands. 

The figure in shining white raised 
his right hand in a gesture not be- 
nign, but imperious. “We meet 
again, O unhappy Prince!” 

The Prince had been trained truly 



and well; fear was not natural to 
him. He started to sit up, but an 
impalpable force shoved against his 
chest and thrust him back against 
the bed. He started to speak. 

The air was sucked from his 
throat. “Be silent, child of iniquity! 
The Lord Mota speaks through me, 
You will listen in peace.” 

Wilkie judged it to be about time 
to divert the Asiatic’s attention. He 
intoned, “Great is the Lord Mota!” 
Ardmore continued, “Your hands 
are wet with the blood of innocence. 
There must be an end to it!” 

“Just is the Lord Mota!” 

“You have oppressed his people. 
You have left the land of your fa- 
thers, bringing with you fire and 
sword. You must return!” 

“Patient is the Lord Mota!” 
“But you have tried his patience,” 
agreed Ardmore. “Now he is angry 




SIXTH COLUMN 



HI 



with you. I bring you warning; see 
that ye heed it!” 

“Merciful is the Lord Mota!” 

“Go back to the place whence you 
came — go back at once, taking with 
you all your people — and return not 
again!” Ardmore thrust out a hand 
and closed it slowly. “Heed not this 
warning — the breath will be crushed 
from your body!” The pressure 
across the chest of the Oriental in- 
creased intolerably, his eyes bulged 
out, he gasped for air. 

“Heed not this warning — you will 
be cast down from your high place!” 
The Prince felt himself suddenly be- 
come light; he was cast into the air, 
pressed hard against the high ceiling. 
Just as suddenly his support left 
him; he fell heavily back to the bed. 

“So speaks my Lord Mota!” 

“Wise is the man who heeds him!” 
Wilkie was running short of cho- 
ruses. 

Ardmore was ready to conclude. 
His eye swept around the room and 
noted something he had seen before 
— the Prince’s ubiquitous chess table. 
It was set up by the head of the bed, 
as if the Prince amused himself with 
it on sleepless nights. Apparently 
the man set much store by the game. 
Ardmore added a postscript. “My 
Lord Mota is done — but heed the 
advice of an old man: Men and 

women are not pieces in a game!” 
An invisible hand swept the costly, 
beautiful chessmen to the floor. In 
spite of his rough handling, the 
Prince had sufficient spirit left in 
him to glare. 

“And now my Lord Shaam bids 
you sleep.” The green light flared 
up to greater brilliance; the Prince 
went limp. 

“Whew!” sighed Ardmore. “I’m 
glad that’s over. Nice co-operation, 
Wilkie — I was never cut out to be 
an actor.” He hoisted up one side 
of his robes and dug a package of 



cigarettes out of his pants pocket. 
“Better have one,” he offered. 
“We’ve got a really dirty job ahead 
of us.” 

“Thanks,” said Wilkie, accepting 
the offer. “Look, Chief — is it really 
necessary to kill everybody here? I 
don’t relish it.” 

“Don’t get chicken, son,” admon- 
ished Ardmore with an edge in his 
voice. “This is war — and war is no 
joke. There is no such thing as hu- 
mane war. This is a military for- 
tress we are in; it is necessary to our 
plans that it be reduced completely. 
We couldn’t do it from the air be- 
cause the plan requires keeping the 
Prince alive.” 

“Why wouldn’t it do just as well 
to leave them unconscious?” 

“You argue too much. Part of 
the disorganization plan is to leave 
the Prince still alive and in com- 
mand, but cut off from all his usual 
assistants. That will create a tur- 
moil of inefficiency much greater 
than if we had simply killed him and 
let their command devolve to their 
number two man. You know that. 
Get on with your job.” 

With the lethal fay from their 
staffs turned to maximum power, 
they swept the walls and floor and 
ceiling, carrying death to Asiatics 
for hundreds of feet — through rock 
and metal, plaster and wood. Wil- 
kie did his job with white-lipped effi- 
ciency. 

Five minutes later they were carv- 
ing the stratosphere for home — the 
Citadel. 

Eleven other scout cars were hur- 
rying through the night. In Cincin- 
nati, in Chicago, in Dallas, in major 
cities across the breadth of the con- 
tinent they dove out of the darkness, 
silencing opposition where they 
found it, and landed little squads of 
intent and resolute men. In they 
went, past sleeping guards, and 



142 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



dragged out local senior officials of 
the Pan-Asians — provincial gover- 
nors, military commanders, the men 
on horseback. They dumped each 
unconscious kidnaped Oriental on 
the roof of the local temple of Mota, 
there to be received and dragged 
down below by the arms of a robed 
and bearded priest. 

Then to the next city to repeat it 
again, as long as the night lasted. 

Calhoun buttonholed Ardmore 
almost as soon as he was back in the 
Citadel. “Major Ardmore,” he an- 
nounced, clearing his throat, “I have 
waited up to discuss a matter of im- 
port with you.” 

This man, Ardmore thought, can 
pick the damnedest times for a con- 
ference. “Yes?” 

“I believe you expect a rapid cul- 
mination of events?” 

“Things are coming to a head, 
yes.” 

“I presume the issue will be de- 
cided very presently. I have not 
been able to get the details I want 
from your man Thomas — he is not 
very co-operative; I fail to see why 
you have thrust him up to the posi- 
tion of speaking for you in your ab- 
sence — but that is beside the point,” 
Calhoun conceded with a magnani- 
mous gesture. “What I wanted to 
say is this: Have you given any 

thought to the form of government 
after we drive out the Asiatic in- 
vader?” 

What the devil was the man get- 
ting at? “Not particularly — why 
should I? Of course, there will have 
to be a sort of provisional interim 
period, military government of sorts, 
w'hile we locate all the old officials 
left alive and get them back on the 
job and arrange for a national elec- 
tion. But that ought not to be too 
hard — we’ll have the local priests to 
work through.” 



Calhoun’s eyebrows shot up. “Do 
you really mean to tell me, my dear 
man, that you are seriously contem- 
plating returning to the outmoded 
inefficiencies of elections and all that 
sort of thing?” 

Ardmore stared at him. “What 
else are you suggesting?” 

“It seems obvious. We have here 
a unique opportunity to break 
with the stupidities of the past and 
substitute a truly scientific rule, 
headed by a man chosen for his 
ability and scientific training rather 
than for his skill in catering to the 
prejudices of the mob.” 

“Dictatorship, eh? And where 
would I find such a man?” Ard- 
more’s voice was disarmingly, dan- 
gerously gentle. 

Calhoun did not speak, but indi- 
cated by the slightest of smug self- 
deprecatory gestures that Ardmore 
would not have far to look to find the 
right man. 

Ardmore chose not to notice Cal- 
houn’s implied willingness to serve. 
“Never mind,” he said, and his voice 
was no longer gentle, but sharp. 
“Colonel Calhoun, I dislike to have 
to remind you of your duty — but 
understand this: You and I are 

military men. It is not the business 
of - military men to monkey with 
politics. You and I hold our com- 
missions by grace of a constitution, 
and our sole duty is to that consti- 
tution. If the people of the United 
States want to streamline their gov- 
ernment, they will let us know! 

“In the meantime, you have mili- 
tary duties, and so do I. Go ahead 
with yours.” 

Calhoun seemed about to burst 
into speech. Ardmore cut him 
short. “That is all. Carry out your 
orders, sir!” 

Calhoun turned abruptly and left. 

Ardmore called his Chief of Intel- 
ligence to him. “Thomas,” he said, 



SIXTH COLUMN 



143 



“I want a close, but discreet, check 
kept on Colonel Calhoun’s move- 
ments.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“The last of the scout cars are 

* * * 33 

m, sir. 

“Good. How does the tally stand 
now?” Ardmore asked. 

“Just a moment, sir. It was run- 
ning about six raids to a ship — w T ith 
this last one that makes a total of 
. . . uh . . . nine and two makes" 
eleven — seventy-one prisoners in 
sixty-eight raids. Some of .them 
doubled up.” 

“Any casualties?” 

“Only to the Pan-Asians — ” 
“Damn it — that’s what I meant! 
No, I mean to our men, of course.” 
“None, major. One man got a 
broken arm when he fell down a 
staircase in the dark.” 



“I guess we can stand that. We 
should get some reports on the local 
demonstrations— at least from the 
East coast cities — before long. Let 
me know.” 

“I will.” 

“Would you mind telling my or- 
derly to step in as you leave. I 
want to send for some caffeine tab- 
lets — better have one yourself; this 
is going to be a big day.” 

“A good notion, major.” The 
communications aid w'ent out. 

In sixty-eight cities throughout 
the land, preparations were in prog- 
ress for the demonstrations that 
constituted Phase 2 of Disorganiza- 
tion Plan IV. The priest of the 
temple in Oklahoma City had dele- 
gated part of his local task to two 
men, Patrick Minkowski, taxi 
driver, and John W. (Jack) Smyth, 




144 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



retail merchant. They were engaged 
in fitting leg irons to the ankles of 
the Voice of the Hand, Pan-Asian 
administrator of Oklahoma City. 
The limp, naked body of the Orien- 
tal lay on a long table in a work- 
shop down under the temple. 

“There,” announced Minkowski, 
“that’s the best job of riveting I can 
do without heating tools. It’ll take 
him a while to get it off, anyway. 
Where’s that stencil?” 

“By your elbow. Captain Isaacs 
said he’d weld those joints with his 
staff after we finished; I wouldn’t 
worry about them. Sav, it seems 
odd to call the priest Captain Isaacs, 
doesn’t it? Do you think we’re 
really in the army — legally, I 
mean?” 

“I wouldn’t know about that — 
and as long as it gives me a chance 
to take a crack at those flat-faced 
apes, I don’t care. I suppose we 
are, though — if you admit that 
Isaacs is an army officer, I guess he 
can take recruits. Look — do we put 
this stencil on his back or on his 
stomach?” 

"I’d say to put it on both sides. 
It does seem funny, though, about 
this army business, I mean. One 
day you’re going to church; the next 
you’re told it’s a military outfit, and 
they swear you in.” 

“Personally, I like it,” commented 
Minkowski. “Sergeant Minkowski 
— it sounds good. They wouldn’t 
take me before on account o’ my 
heart. As for the church part, I 
never took any stock in this great 
god Mota business, anyhow; I came 
for the free food and the chance to 
breathe in peace.” He removed the 
stencil from the back of the Asiatic; 
Smyth commenced filling in the 
traced design of an ideograph with 
quick-drying indelible paint. “I 
wonder what that heathen writing 
means?” 



“Didn’t you hear?” asked Smyth, 
and told him. 

A delighted grin came over Min- 
kowski’s face. “Well, I’ll be 
damned,” he said. “If anybody 
called me that, it wouldn't do him 
no good to smile when he said it. 
You wouldn’t kid me?” 

“No, indeed. I was in the com- 
munications office when they were 
getting the design from the mpther 
temple — I mean general headquar- 
ters. Here’s another funny thing, 
too. I saw the chap in the screen 
who was passing out the design, and 
he was Asiatic as this monkey” — 
Smyth indicated the unconscious 
Voice of the Hand — “but they called 
him Captain Downer and treated 
him like a white man. What do you 
make of that?” 

“Couldn't say. He must be on 
our side, or else he wouldn’t be loose 
in headquarters. What’ll we do with 
the rest of this paint?” 

Between them they found some- 
thing to do with it,- which Captain 
Isaacs noticed at once when he came 
in to see how they were progressing. 
He suppressed a smile. “I see you 
have elaborated on your instructions 
a bit,” he commented, trying to keep 
his voice soberly official. 

“It seemed a pity to waste the 
paint,” Minkowski explained in- 
genuously. “Besides, he looked so 
naked the way he was.” 

“That’s a matter of opinion. Per- 
sonally, I would say that he looks 
nakeder now. We’ll drop the point; 
hurry up and get his head shaved. 

I want to leave any time now.” 

Minkowski and Smyth waited at 
the door of the temple five minutes 
later, the Voice of the Hand rolled 
in a blanket on the floor between 
them. They saw a sleek duocycle 
station wagon come shooting up to 



SIXTH COLUMN 



14 $ 



the curb in front of the temple and 
brake to a sudden stop. Its bell 
sounded, and Captain Isaacs’ face 
appeared in the window of the driv- 
er’s compartment. Minkowski 
threw down the butt of a cigarette 
and grabbed the shoulders of the 
muffled figure at their feet; Smyth 
took the legs and they trotted 
clumsily and heavily out to the car. 

“Dump him in the back,” ordered 
Captain Isaacs. 

That done, Minkowski took the 
wheel w r hile Isaacs and Smyth 
crouched in the back with the sub- 
ject of the pending demonstration. 

“I want you to find a considerable 
gathering of Pan-Asians almost any- 
where,” directed the captain. “If 
there are Americans present, too, so 
much the better. Drive fast and 
pay no attention to anyone. I’ll 
take care of any difficulties with my 
staff.” He settled himself to watch 
the street over Minkowski’s shoul- 
der. 

“Right, captain! Say, this is a 
sweet little buggy,” he added as the 
ear shot forward. “How did you pick 
it up so fast?” 

“I knocked out a few of our yel- 
low friends,” answered Isaacs 
briefly. “Watch that signal!” 

“Got it!” The car slewed around 
and dodged under the nose of on- 
coming cross traffic. A Pan-Asian 
policeman was left futilely waving 
at them. 

A few seconds later Minkowski 
demanded, “How r about that spot 
up ahead, captain?” and hooked his 
chin in the indicated direction. It 
was the square of the civic center. 

“O. K.” He bent over the silent 
figure on the floor of the car, busy 
with his staff. 

The Asiatic began to struggle. 
Smyth fell on him and pinned the 
blanket more firmly about the head 
and shoulders of their victim. “Pick 



your spot. When you stop, we’ll be 
ready.” 

The car lurched to a stomach- 
twisting halt. Smyth slammed open 
the rear door; he and Isaacs grabbed 
corners of the blanket and rolled the 
now'-eonscious official into the street. 
“Take it away, Pat!” 

The ear jumped forward, leaving 
startled and scandalized Asiatics to 
deal with an utterly disgraceful 
situation as best they might. 
Twenty minutes later a brief but 
explicit account of their exploit was 
handed to Ardmore in his office at 
the Citadel. He glanced over it and 
passed it to Thomas. “Here’s a 
crew with imagination, Jeff.” 

Thomas took the report and read 
it, then nodded agreement. “I hope 
they all do as well. Perhaps we 
should have given more detailed in- 
structions.” 

“I don’t think so. Detailed in- 
structions are the death of initia- 
tive. This way we have them all 
striving to think up some particu- 
larly annoying way to get under the 
skins of our slant-eyed lords. I ex- 
pect some very amusing and ingen- 
ious results.” 

By nine a. m., headquarters time, 
each one of the seventy-odd Pan- 
Asian major officials had been re- 
turned alive, but permanently, un- 
bearably disgraced, to his racial 
brethren. In all eases, so far as the 
data at hand went, there had been 
no cause given to the Asiatics to as- 
sociate their latest trouble directly 
with the cult of Mota, It was sim- 
ply catastrophe, psychological ca- 
tastrophe of the worst soi*t, which 
had struck in the night without 
warning and without trace. 

“You have not set the time for 
Phase 3 as yet, major,” Thomas re- 
minded Ardmore when all reports 
were in. 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



146 



“I know it. I don’t expect it to 
be more than two hours from now 
at the outside. We’ve got to give 
them a little time to appreciate what 
has happened to them. The force 
of demoralization will be many 
times as great when they have had 
time to compare notes around the 
country and realize that all of their 
top men have been publicly humili- 
ated. That, combined with the fact 
that we crippled their continental 
headquarters almost to the limit, 
should produce as sweet a case of 
mass hysteria as one could wish. 
But we’ll have to give it time to 
spread. Is Downer on deck?” 

“He’s standing by in the commu- 
nications watch office.” 

“Tell them to cut in a relay cir- 
cuit from him to my office. I want 
to listen to what he picks up here.” 
Thomas dialed with the interoffice 
communicator and spoke briefly. 
Very shortly Downer’s pseudo-Asi- 
atic countenance showed on the 
screen above Ardmore’s desk. Ard- 
more spoke to him. Downer slipped 
an earphone olf one ear and gave 
him an inquiring look. 

“I said, ‘Are you getting anything 
yet?’ ” repeated Ardmore. 

“Some. They’re in quite an up- 
roar. What I’ve been able to trans- 
late is being canned.” He flicked a 
thumb toward the microphone 
which hung in front of his face. A 
preoccupied, listening look came 
into his eyes, and he added, “San 
Francisco is trying to raise the pal- 
ace — ” 

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said 
Ardmore, and closed his own trans- 
mitter. 

“ — the Emperor’s Hand there is 
reported dead. San Francisco wants 
some sort of authorization — Wait 
a minute; the comm office wants me 
to try another wave length. There 
it comes — they’re using the Prince 



Royal’s signal, but it’s in the provin- 
cial governor’s frequency. I can’t 
get w'hat they’re saying; it’s either 
coded or in a dialect I don’t know. 
Watch officer, try another wave 
band — I’m just wasting time on 
that one. , . . That’s better.” Down- 
er’s face became intent, then sud- 
denly lit up. “Chief, get this: Some- 
body is saying that the governor of 
the gulf province has lost his mind 
and asks permission to supersede 
him! Here’s another — wants to 
know what’s wrong with the palace 
circuits and how to reach the palace 
— wants to report an uprising — ” 

Ardmore cut back in. “Where?” 

“Couldn’t catch it. Every fre- 
quency is jammed with traffic, and 
about half of it is incoherent. They 
don’t give each other time to clear 
— send right through another mes- 
sage.” 

There was a gentle knock at the 
outer door of Ardmore’s office. It 
opened a few'inches and Dr. Brooks’ 
head appeared. “May I come in?” 

“Oh — certainly, doctor. Come in. 
We are listening to what Captain 
Downer can pick up from the ra- 
dio.” 

“Too bad we haven’t a dozen of 
him — translators, I mean.” 

“Yes, but there doesn’t seem to be 
much to pick up but a general im- 
pression.” They listened to what 
Downer could pick up for the bet- 
ter part of an hour, mostly dis- 
jointed or partial messages, but it 
was made increasingly evident that 
the sabotage of the palace organiza- 
tion, plus the terrific emotional im- 
pact of the disgrace of key adminis- 
trators, had played hob with the 
normal, smooth functioning of the 
Pan-Asian government. Finally 
Downer said, “Here’s a general order 
going out — Wait a minute — It 
orders a radio silence on all clear- 



SIXTH COLUMN 



147 



speech messages; everything has to 
be coded.” 

Ardmore glanced at Thomas. “I 
guess that is about the right point, 
Jeff. Somebody with horse sense 
and poise is trying to whip them 
back into shape — probably our old 
pal, the Prince. Time to stymie 
him.” He rang the communications 
office. “O. K., Steeves,” he said to 
the face of the w'atch officer, “give 
them power!” 

“Jam ’em?” 

“That’s right. Warn all temples 
through Circuit A, and let them all 
do it at once.” 

“They are standing by now, sir. 
Execute?” 

“Very well — execute!” 

Wilkie had developed a simple lit- 
tle device whereby the tremendous 
power of the temple projectors could 
be rectified, if desired, to undifferen- 
tiated electromagnetic radiation in 
the radio frequencies — static. Now 
they cut loose like sunspots, electri- 
cal storms, and aurora, all hooked 
up together. 

Downer was seen to snatch the 
headphones from his ears. “For the 
love o’ — Why didn’t somebody 
warn me?” He reapproached one 
receiver cautiously to an ear, and 
shook his head. “Dead. I’ll bet 
we’ve burned out every receiver in 
the country.” 

“Maybe so,” observed Ardmore 
to those in his office, “but we’ll keep 
jamming them just the same.” At 
that moment, in all the United 
States, there remained no general 
communication system but the 
pararadio of the cult of Mota. The 
Asiatic rulers could not even fall 
back on wired telephony; the obso- 
lete ground lines had long since been 
salvaged for their copper. 

“How much longer. Chief?” asked 
Thomas. 

AST — 10 



“Not very long. We let ’em talk 
long enough for them to know that 
something hellacious is happening 
all over the country. Now we’ve 
cut ’em off. That should produce 
a feeling of panic. I want to let 
that panic have time to ripen and 
spread to every Pan-Asian in the 
country. When I figure they are 
ripe, we’ll sock it to ’em!” 

“How will you tell?” 

“I can’t. It will be on hunch, be- 
tween ourselves. We’ll let the little 
darlings run around in circles for a 
while, not over an hour, then give 
’em the works.” 

Dr, Brooks nervously attempted 
to make conversation. “It certainly 
will be a relief to have this entire 
matter settled once and for always. 
It’s been very trying at times — ” 
His voice trailed off. 

Ardmore turned on him. “Don’t 
ever think we can settle things ‘once 
and for always.’ ” 

“But surely — if we defeat the 
Pan-Asians decisively — ” 

“That’s where you are wrong 
about it.” The nervous strain he 
was under showed in his brusque 
manner. “We got into this jam by 
thinking we could settle things once 
and for always. We met the Asiatic 
threat by the Non-Intercourse Act 
and by big West coast defenses — so 
they came at us over the north pole! 

“We should have known better; 
there were plenty of lessons in his- 
tory. The old French Republic 
tried to freeze events to one pattern 
with the Versailles Treaty. When 
that didn’t work they built the 
Maginot Line and went to sleep be- 
hind it. What did it get them? 
Final blackout! 

“Life is a dynamic process and 
can’t be made static. ‘ — and they 
all lived happily ever after’ is fairy- 
tale stu — ” He was interrupted by 
the jangling of a bell and the red 



148 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



flashing of the emergency transpar- 
ency. 

The face of the communications 
watch officer snapped into view on 
the refleetophone screen. “Major 
Ardmore!” 

It was gone and replaced by the 
features of Fran k Mitsui, contorted 
with apprehension. “Major!” he 
burst out. “Colonel Calhoun — he’s 
gone crazy!” 

“Easy, man, easy! What’s hap- 
pened?” 

“He gave me the slip — he’s gone 
up to the temple. He thinks he’s 
the god Mota!” 

Ardmore cut Frank off by 
switching to the communications 
watch officer. “Get me the control 
board in the great altar — move!” 

He got it, but it was not the op- 
erator on watch that Ardmore saw. 
Instead it was Calhoun, bending 
over the console of controls. The 
operator was collapsed in his chair, 
head lolled to the right. Ardmore 
cut the connection at once and 
dived for the door. 

Thomas and Brooks competed for 
second place, leaving the orderly a 
hopelessly outdistanced fourth. The 
three swept up the gravity chute to 
the temple level at maximum ac- 
celeration, and slammed out onto 
the temple floor. The altar lay be- 
fore them, a hundred feet away. 

“I assigned Frank to watch him,” 
Thomas was trying to say when Cal- 
houn stuck his head over the upper 
rail of the altar. 

“Stand fast!” 

They stood. Brooks whispered, 
“He’s got the heavy projector 
trained on us. Careful, major!” 

“I know it,” Ardmore acknowl- 
edged, letting the words slip out of 
one side of his mouth. He cleared 
his throat. “Colonel Calhoun!” 



“I am the great Lord Mota. Care- 
ful how you speak to me!” 

“Yes, certainly. Lord Mota. But 
tell thy servant something — isn’t 
Colonel Calhoun one of your attri- 
butes?” 

Calhoun considered this. “Some- 
times,” he finally answered, “some- 
times I think that he is. Yes, he is.” 
“Then I wish to speak to Colonel 
Calhoun.” Ardmore eased forward 
a few steps. 

“Stand still!” Calhoun crouched 
rigid over the projector. “My light- 
nings are set for white men — take 
care!” 

“Watch it. Chief,” whispered 
Thomas, “he can blast the whole 
damn place with that thing.” 
“Don’t I know it!” Ardmore an- 
swered voicelessly, and started to 
resume the verbal tight-rope walk. 
But something had diverted Cal- 
houn’s attention. They saw him 
turn his head, then hastily swing the 
heavy projector around and depress 
its controls with both hands. He 
raised his head almost immediately, 
seemed to make some readjustment 
of the projector, and depressed the 
controls again. Almost simultane- 
ously some heavy body struck him; 
he fell from sight behind the rail. 

On the floor of the altar platform 
they found Calhoun struggling. But 
his arms were held, his legs pinioned 
by the limbs of a short stocky brown 
man — Frank Mitsui. Frank’s eyes 
were lifeless china, his muscles rigid. 

It took four men to force Calhoun 
into an improvised strait jacket and 
to carry him down to sick bay. “As 
I figure it,” said Thomas, watching 
the work party remove their psy- 
chotic burden, “Dr. Calhoun had the 
projector set to kill white men. The 
first blast didn’t harm Frank, and he 
had to stop to reset the controls. 
That saved us.” 

“Yes — but not Frank.” 



SIXTH COLUMN 



149 



“Well — you know his story. That 
second blast must have hit him 
while he was actually in the air — 
full power. Did you feel his arms? 
Coagulated instantaneously — like a 
hard-boiled egg.” 

But they had no time to dwell on 
the end of little Mitsui’s tragic life; 
more minutes had passed. Ardmore 
and company hurried back to his 
office, where he found Kendig, his 
chief of staff, calmly handling the 
traffic of dispatches. Ardmore de- 
manded a quick verbal resume. 

“Only one change, major — they 
tried to bomb the temple in Nash- 
ville. Didn’t damage it, naturally, 
but wrecked the buildings all around 
it. Have you set the zero hour? 
Several dioceses have inquired.” 

“Not yet, but very soon. Unless 



you have some more data for me, 
I’ll give them their final instructions 
right away on Circuit A.” 

“No, sir, you might as well go 
ahead.” 

When Circuit A was reported 
back as ready, Ardmore cleared his 
throat. He felt suddenly nervous. 
“Action in twenty minutes, gentle- 
men,” he started in, “I want to re- 
view the main points of the plan.” 
He ran over it; the twelve scout cars 
were assigned one each to the twelve 
largest cities, or, rather, what was 
almost the same list, the twelve 
heaviest concentrations of Pan- 
Asian military power. The attack 
of the scout cars would be the sig- 
nal to attack on the ground in those 
areas. 

The scout cars, with one excep- 
tion, were poised even as he spoke, 



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150 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




in the stratosphere over their objec- 
tives. 

The heavy projectors mounted in 
the scout cars were to inflict as 
much quick damage as possible on 
military objectives on the ground, 
especially barracks and air fields. 
Priests, being nearly invulnerable, 
would supplement them on the 
ground, as would the projectors in 
the temples. The “troops” made up 
from the congregations would harry 
and hunt. “Tell them when in doubt 
to shoot, and shoot first. Don’t wait 
to see the whites of their eyes. The 
basic weapons are good for thou- 
sands of activations without re- 
charging, and they can’t possibly 
hurt a w'hite man with them. Shoot 
anything that moves! 

“Also,” he added, “tell them not 
to be alarmed at anything strange. 
If it looks impossible, one of our 
boys is responsible; we specialize in 
miracles* 

“That’s all— good hunting!” 



His last precaution referred to a 
special task assignment for Wilkie, 
Graham, Scheer, and Downer. Wil- 
kie had been working on some spe- 
cial effects, with Graham’s artistic 
collaboration. The task in battle 
required a team of four, but was not 
a part of the regular plan. Wilkie 
himself did not know just how well 
it would work, but Ardmore had as- 
signed a scout car to them and had 
given them their head in the matter. 

His striker had been dressing him 
in his robes as he spoke. He settled 
his turban in place, checked his per- 
sonal pararadio hook-up with the 
communications office, and turned 
to say good-by to Kendig and 
Thomas. He noticed a queer look 
in Thomas’ eyes, and felt his neck 
turn red. “You want to go, don’t 
you, Jeff?” 

Thomas did not say anything. 
Ardmore added, “Sure — I’m a heel. 
I know that. But only one of us 
can go to this party, and it’s going 
to be me!” 

“You’ve got me wrong, Chief — I 
don’t like killing.” 

“So? I don’t know that I do, 
either. Just the same, I’m going out 
and finish Frank Mitsui’s bookkeep- 
ing for him.” He shook hands with 
both of them. 

Thomas gave the signal of execu- 
tion before Ardmore reached the 
Pan-Asian capital city. His pilot 
set him down on the roof of the 
temple there after the fighting in the 
capital had commenced, then 
gunned his craft away to take up 
his own task assignment. 

Ardmore looked around. It was 
quiet in the immediate neighbor- 
hood of the temple; the big projec- 
tor in the temple would have seen 
to that. He had seen one Pan-Asian 
cruiser crash while they were land- 
ing, but the speedy little scout car 



SIXTH COLUMN 



151 



assigned to that task he had not 
been able to notice. He went down 
inside the temple. 

It seemed deserted. A man was 
standing near a duocycle car parked 
garagelike on the temple floor. He 
came up and announced, “Sergeant 
Bryan, sir. The priest — I mean 
Lieutenant Rogers — told me to wait 
for you.” 

“Very well, then — let’s go.” He 
climbed into the car. Bryan put his 
little fingers to his lips and whistled 
piercingly. 

“Joe!” he shouted. A man stuck 
his head over the top of the altar. 
“Going out, Joe.” The head disap- 
peared; the great doors of the tem- 
ple opened. Bryan climbed in be- 
side Ardmore and asked, “Where 
to?” 

“Find me the heaviest fighting — 
or, rather, Pan-Asians, lots of 
them.” 

“It’s the same thing.” The car 
trundled down the wide temple 
steps, turned right and picked up 
speed. 

The street ran into a little circu- 
lar parkway set w r ith bushes. There 
were four or five figures crouched 
behind those bushes, and one 
sprawled prone on the ground. As 
the car slowed, Ardmore heard the 
sharp ping! of a vortex rifle or pis- 
tol — he could not tell which — and 
one of the crouching figures jerked 
and fell. 

“They’re in that office building,” 
yelled Bryan in his ear. 

He set his staff to radiate a nar- 
row, thin wedge and fanned the 
beam up and down the building. 
The pinging noise stopped. An Asi- 
atic dashed out a door that he had 
not yet touched and fled up the 
street. Ardmore cut the beam and 
used another setting, aiming at the 
figure by means of a thin bright 



beam of light. The light touched 
the man; there was a dull, heavy 
boom and the man disappeared. In 
his place was a great oily cloud 
which swelled and dispersed. 

“Jumping Judas! What was 
that?” Bryan demanded. 

“Colloidal explosion. I released 
the surface tension of his body cells. 
We’ve been saving it for this day.” 

“But what made him explode?” 

“The pressure in his cells. They 
can run as high as several hundred 
pounds. But let’s go.” 

The next few blocks were deserted 
of all but bodies; however, Ardmore 
kept his projector turned on and 
swept the buildings they passed as 
systematically as the speed would 
allow. He took advantage of the 
lull to call headquarters. “Any re- 
ports yet, Jeff?” 

“Nothing much yet. Chief. It's 
too soon.” 

They shot out into the open be- 
fore Ardmore realized where Bryan 
was taking him. It was the State 
university campus on the edge of 
the city, now used as barracks by 
the imperial army. The athletic 
fields and golf course adjoining had 
been turned into an airport. 

Here for the first time he realized 
clearly how pitifully few were the 
Americans whom he had armed to 
destroy the Pan-Asians. There ap- 
peared to be a skirmish line of sorts 
in position off to the right; he could 
see the toll they were taking of the 
Asiatics. But there were thousands 
of the yellow men, enough to engulf 
the whites by sheer multitude. 
Damn it, why hadn’t the scout car 
assigned reduced this place. Had 
it met with a mishap? 

He decided that the crew of the 
scout car had been kept busy with 
aircraft, too busy to clean out the 
barracks. He thought now that he 



152 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



should have fought city by city, us- 
ing all available scout cars as a unit, 
and trusting to the jamming of the 
radio to permit him to do it that 
way. Was it too late now to change? 
Yes — the gage was thrown, the bat- 
tle was on all over the country. 
Now it must be fought. 

He was already busy with his 
staff in an attempt to swing the is- 
sue. He cut into the lines of Asiat- 
ics with the primary effect set at full 
power, doing a satisfying amount of 
slaughter. Then he decided on a 
change in tactics — colloidal explo- 
sion. It was slow'er and clumsy, but 
the effect on morale should be ad- 
vantageous. 

He omitted the guide ray to make 
it more mysterious and sighted 
through a peephole in the cube of 
the staff. There! One of the rats 
was smoke! He had them ranged 
now — two! Three! Four! Again 
and again — a dozen or more. 

It was too much for the Orientals. 
They were brave and seasoned sol- 
diers, but they could not fight what 
they did not understand. They 
broke and ran, back toward their 
barracks. Ardmore heard cheers 
from the scattered Americans, domi- 
nated by an authentic rebel yell. 
Figures rose up from cover and took 
out after the disorganized Asiatics. 

Ardmore called headquarters 
again. “Circuit A!” 

A few seconds’ delay and he w as 
answered, “You’ve got it.” 

“AH officers, attention! Use the 
organic explosion as much as possi- 
ble. It scares the hell out of ’em!” 
He repeated the message and re- 
leased the circuit. 

He directed Bryan to go closer to 
the buildings. Bryan bumped the 
car up over a curb and complied, 
weaving in and out between trees. 
They were conscious of a terrific ex- 
plosion; the car rose a few feet in 



the air and came lurching down on 
its side. Ardmore pulled himself to- 
gether and attempted to get up. It 
was then that he realized that some- 
how he had held his staff clear. 

The door above him was jammed. 
He burned his way clear with the 
staff and clambered out. He looked 
back in to Bryan. “Are you hurt?” 

“Not much.” Bryan shook him- 
self. “Cracked my left collarbone, 
maybe.” 

“Here — grab my hand. Can you 
make it? I’ve got to hang on to my 
staff.” Between them they got him 
out. “I’ll have to leave you. Got 
your basic weapon?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“All ’ right. Good luck.” He 
glanced at the crater as he moved 
away. It was well, he thought, that 
he had had his shield turned on. 

The few dozen whites were mov- 
ing cautiously among the buildings, 
shooting as they went Twice Ard- 
more was fired on by men who had 
been told to shoot first. Good boys! 
Shoot anything that moves! 

A Pan -Asian aircraft, flying low, 
cut slowly across the edge of the 
campus. It trailed a plume of heavy 
yellow fog. Gas! They were gas- 
sing their own troops in order to kill 
a handful of Americans. The bank 
of mist settled slowly toward the 
ground and rolled in his direction. 
He suddenly realized that this was 
serious, for him as well as for others. 
His shield w'as little protection 
against gas, for it was necessary to 
let air filter through it. 

But he w 7 as attempting to get a 
line on the aircraft even as he de- 
cided that his own turn had come. 
The craft wavered and crashed be- 
fore he could line up on it. So the 
scout car was on the job after all — 
good! The gas came on. Could he 
run around the edge of it? No. 



Perhaps he could hold his breath 
and run through it, trusting to his 
shield for all other matters. Not 
likely. 

Some unconscious recess of his 
brain gave him the answer — trans- 
mutation. A few seconds later, his 
staff set to radiate in a wide cone, 
he was blasting a hole in the deadly 
cloud. Back and forth he swept the 
cone, as if playing a stream of water 
with a hose, and the foggy particles 
changed to harmless, life-giving oxy- 
gen. 

“Jeff?” 

“Yes, Chief?” 

“Any trouble with gas?” 

“Quite a bit. In — ” 

“Never mind. Broadcast this on 
Circuit A: Set staff to — ” He went 
on to describe how to fight that 
most intangible weapon. 

The scout car came screaming 
down out of heaven, hovered, and 
began cruising back and forth over 
the dormitory barracks. The cam- 
pus became suddenly very silent. 
That was better; apparently the pi- 
lot had just had too much to do at 
one time. Ardmore felt suddenly 
alone, the fight had moved on past 
him while he was dealing with the 
gas threat. He looked^ around for 
transportation to commandeer in or- 
der to scout around and check up 



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on the fighting in the rest of the 
city. The trouble with this damn 
battle, he thought to himself, is that 
it hasn’t any coherence; it’s every 
place at once. No help for it; it was 
in the nature of the problem. 

“Chief?” It was Thomas calling. 
“Go ahead, Jeff.” 

“Wilkie is heading your way.” 
“Good. Has he had any luck?” 
“Yes, but just wait till you see! 
I caught a glimpse of it in the 
screen, transmitted from Kansas 
City. That’s all now.” 

“O. K.” He looked around again 
for transportation. He wanted to 
be. around some Pan-Asians, some 
live Pan-Asians, when Wilkie ar- 
rived. There was a monocycle 
standing at the curb, abandoned, 
about a block from the campus. He 
appropriated it. 

There were Pan-Asians, lie dis- 
covered, in plenty near the palace 
— and the battle was not going too 
well for the whites. He added the 
effort of his staff and was very busy 
picking out individuals and explod- 
ing them when Wilkie arrived. 

Enormous, incredible, a Gargan- 
tuan manlike figure of perfect black 
— more than a thousand feet high, 
it came striding across tall buildings, 
its feet filling the streets. It was 
as if the Empire State Building bad 
gone for a stroll — a giant, three- 
dimensional shadow of a priest of 
Mota, complete with robes and 
staff. 

It had a voice. 

It had a voice that rolled with 
thunder, audible and distinct for 
miles. “White men, arise! The day 
is at hand! The Disciple has come! 
Rise up and smite your masters!” 
Ardmore wondered how the men 
in the car could stand the noise, 
wondered also if they were flying in- 
side the projection, or somewhere 
above it. 

The voice changed to the Pan- 
Asian tongue. Ardmore could not 
understand the words, but he knew 





SIXTH COLUMN 



155 



the general line it would take. 
Downer was telling the war lords 
that vengeance was upon them, and 
that any who wished to save their 
yellow skins would be wise to flee 
at once. He was telling them that, 
but with a great deal more emphasis 
and attention to detail and with an 
acute knowledge of their psychologi- 
cal weaknesses. 

The gross and horrifying pseudo- 
creature stopped in the park before 
the palace, and, leaning over, 
touched a massive finger to a flee- 
ing Asiatic. The man disappeared. 
He straightened up and again ad- 
dressed the world in Pan-Asian — 
but the square no longer contained 
Pan-Asians. 

The fighting continued sporadi- 
cally for hours, but it was no longer 
a battle; it was more in the nature 
of vermin extermination. Some of 
the Orientals surrendered; more died 
by their own hand; most died pur- 
posefully at the hands of their late 
serfs. A consolidated report from 
Thomas to Ardmore concerning the 
degree of progress in mopping up 
throughout the country was inter- 
rupted by the communications of- 
ficer. “Urgent call from the priest 
in the capital city, sir.” 

“Put him on.” 

A second voice continued, “Ma- 
jor Ardmore?” 

“Yes. Go ahead.” 

“We have captured the Prince 
Royal — ” 

“The hell you say!” 

“Yes, sir. I request your permis- 
sion to execute him.” 

“Nor 

“What was that, sir?” 

“No! You heard me. I’ll see him 
at your headquarters. Mind you 
don’t let anything happen to him!” 
Ardmore took time to shave off 



his beard and to change into uni- 
form before he had the Prince Royal 
brought before him. When at last 
the Pan-Asian ruler stood before 
him he looked up and said without 
ceremony, “Any of your people I 
can save will be loaded up and 
shipped back where they came 
from.” 

“You are gracious.” 

“I suppose you know by now that 
you were tricked, hoaxed, by science 
that your culture can’t match. You 
could have wiped us out any time, 
almost up to the last.” 

The Oriental remained impassive. 
Ardmore hoped fervently that the 
calm was superficial. He continued, 
“What I said about your people 
does not apply to you. I shall hold 
you as a common criminal.” 

The Prince’s brows shot up. “For 
making war f” 

“No. For the mass murder you 
ordered in the territory of the 
United States — your ‘educational’ 
lesson. You will be tried by a jury, 
like any other common criminal, 
and, I strongly suspect — hanged by 
the neck until you are dead! 

“That’s all. Take him away.” 
“One moment, please.” 

“What is it?” 

“You recall the chess problem you 
saw in my palace?” 

“What of it?” 

“Could you give me that four- 
move solution?” 

“Oh, that.” Ardmore laughed 
heartily. “You’ll believe anything, 
won’t you? I had no solution; I 
was simply bluffing.” 

It was clear for an instant that 
something at last had cracked the 
Prince’s cold self-control. 

He never came to trial. They 
found him the next morning, his 
head collapsed across the chess- 
board he had asked for. 



THE END. 



154 




BRASS 

Schachner is starting a new series that 
looks excellent. Adventures of a space 
lawyer! 

Dear Sirs: 

Herewith my subscription, November, 
1940, to October, 1941, for your interesting 
Astounding stories. I have taken it with- 
out a break — in spite of Mr. Hitler — ever 
since Street & Smith took it over, and hope 
to continue taking it until anno Domini 
puts a period to my capacity to read it. 
That is conditional, however, on it remain- 
ing under the guidance of as good a crafts- 
man as yourself. 

You have lifted Astounding stories out 
of the rut of Escape literature, and I read 
and enjoy it on account of its literary value. 
You may be interested in passing to know 
that I have all your own stories — every one 
— carefully detached in proper sequence and 
professionally bound; and I would not part 
with them for quite a lot of money. 

Thanks for the September number just 
received. I notice your readers are whole- 
heartedly enthusiastic about the “Final 
Blackout.” Sorry, Mr. Campbell, but I 
don’t regard this as a science-fiction story. 
It is a first-class yarn, and it is real litera- 
ture, but it is merely an historical story of 
a military genius, set in the near future in- 
stead of in the past. There are quite a 
number of such on the market . Offhand, let 
me quote, ‘‘The Purple Pirate” — the last 
of trilogy — by Talbot Mundy, and “Bel- 



TACKS 

larion,” by Rafael Sabatini. "Final Black- 
out,” though very good, is not up to either 
of these two alone. It is not long enough 
to afford opportunity for characterization, 
which is the real test of genius in a novel. 

I am not greatly impressed with Hein- 
lein. He writes w'ell, but unless I miss my 
mark he will not last, for he is an oppor- 
tunist in his plots, and an opportunist de- 
velops into a hack-writer. He could write 
just as entertainingly for the Sunday 
Herald; he would just suit his plots to his 
environments. I hate to seem unkind, but 
truth must prevail. 

And now may I enter the lists about Mr. 
Smith — THE Mr. Smith. I have been 
itching to spill my opinion about him for 
years, and now I intend to repress no 
longer, I suppose this letter will find its 
way into the w, p. b., but I should really 
like to know what other readers’ opinions 
are my impressions of him. 

I regard Mr. Smith as a victim of cir- 
cumstances. His first yarn. ‘‘The Skylark 
of Space” — I have all the Skylark stories, 
too, professionally bound and in proper se- 
quence — was the best interplanetary yarn I 
have ever read, not even excluding your 
own. And I’ve been reading them for forty 
years. His hero was an ordinary, plain fel- 
low, even if he was a genius. He was dash- 
ing and devil-may-care, and was slangy like 
you and me. After the initial discovery, 
the story developed logically, with human 
and interesting characters. It had every- 



tiling a good story should have; a first- 
class villain, plenty of adventure and ex- 
citement, plenty of science— sketched spar- 
ingly, not slapped on with a whitewash 
brush — to add conviction, and plenty of 
good, sound character drawing. 

It created a furore. Even now, after all 
this time, we hear constant echoes of the 
roars of approval. 

Mr. Smith lost his head and his mental 
balance. He must needs try to cap it; and 
cap it again and yet again, each time cre- 
ating a character more wildly fantastic than 
before; until at last even his most ardent 
devotees turn against him; and the mighty 
Kimball Kinnison, the doyen of them all, 
merely provokes a titter. 

Try again, Mr. Smith. You have real 
genius. I do not know any writer besides 
yourself, who can draw such convincing pic- 
tures of alien civilizations and make them 
seem normal. You have landed yourself 
into a mess, and if you try to cap “Gray 
Lensman,” you will be going Bogey Bogey 
and landing yourself into a padded room. 
Start at the beginning again, and just write 
about plain, ordinary folks again. 

About Nat Schachner. Give him a rest, 
or persuade him to write some other type 
of story for a while. He can write; witness 
“Cold,” in your March issue. But a rest 
or a change will benefit him and your read- 
ers alike. 

Of your present bunch of writers, I like 
de Camp best of all. He is one of the 
fellows I would love to meet. His branch 
of humor hits me just where I live. His 
stories and his articles alike have an air of 
benign detachment which is as rare as it is 
attractive. He writes as if he wrote for the 
fun of it. And there is nothing more at- 
tractive than artful artlessness! 

Here is my list for the last few months — 
one has to be in the fashion. I only give 
one of van Vogt’s “monster” series. The 
others, though good stories, merely ring 
the changes on the same theme. “Vault 
of the Beast,” in particular, was done ages 
ago by Don Stuart, and immeasurably bet- 
ter in “Who Goes There?” 

1 “Black Destroyer.” Original, well- 
written. 

2 “Crisis in Utopia.” Original, novel 
subject, plausible, well-written. 

3 “Final Blackout.” Topical subject, en- 
tertaining and well-constructed. 

4a “Repetition.” 4b “Admiral’s In- 
spection.” Two gems of character drawing. 
Hot-headed youth and wise middle-age ex- 
cellently contrasted. 

5 “Cold.” Excellent character study. 

6 “And Then There Was One.” First- 
class melodrama. Enjoyed every, word of 
it. Never mind the screwy science. 



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7 “Reincarnation.” Don’t like robot sto- 
ries, as a rule, but this was good literature. 

8 "Space Guards.” A good wild West 
yarn. 

9 And all the "Johnny Black” yarns. I 
love a bit of humor, even with my science- 
fiction. 

The most humorous story you ever 
printed was “Hyperpilosity.” Alas, such an 
idea for a plot only comes once in a hun- 
dred years! — E. E. Simpson, 11 Lawn Rd., 
Doncaster, England. 



Artists and Authors. 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

I might as well make a regular monthly 
comment in re Astounding, so I’ll clarify 
my ratings, in sympathy with the Analyti- 
cal Laboratory. Starting with three stars, 
is the average level of del Rey and Jame- 
son; in other words, just good, with no. mo- 
tive needed. Four stars reaches the level 
of de Camp and Knight, and is usually 
good enough to elicit a few squeals of joy. 
Five stars represents Doe Smith’s own pri- 
vate bailiwick, and is in the region of the 
glassy stare and the hushed breath. Six 
stars, that rarest of jewels, only shows it- 
self when Stuart sounds its mating call, or 
in the very rare case of a “Sinister Barrier.” 
Reaction is generally unpredictable but vio- 
lent. If the illustrator gets a star, it means 
“excellent”; if two stars, “superlative”; if 
three stars, refer to Rogers’ “Gray Lens- 
man” cover; 

That finished with, here is my version of 
the November issue: 

“SIAN”***** 

A. E. van Vogt 
“SALVAGE”**** 

Viv Phillips 

“THE EXALTED”**** 

L. Sprague de Camp 
“ONE WAS STUBBORN”*** 

Rene La Fayette Cartier 

“SUNSPOT PURGE”*** 

Clifford D. Simak Kramer 

Little more need be said, except that I 
rate . “Sian” better than anything of 
Smith’s, unless it be all his stories put to- 
gether. Kramer is a welcome relief from 
the dramatic but drastic Schneeman and 
Cartier. — Dick Wortman, 843 East 97th 
Street, Seattle, Washington. 



Schneeman* 

Schneeman* 

Cartier* 



Back issues wanted. 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

S 0 S to anybody willing to rent their 
issues of Astounding which contain any of 



BRASS TACKS AND SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS 



159 



E. E. Smith’s works. Because of their 
value as collectors items, I am not asking 
to buy them, although if anyone must sell, 
HI buy with pleasure. Send all offers to, 
the following name and address: — Wm. D. 
Calhoun, 727 Glenwood Rd., Glendale, 
California. 



But we’re g long, long way from under- 
standing those protiens! 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

Here’s my ratings for the January 
Astounding: 

1. “Doom Ship” 

2. “The Day We Celebrate” 

3. “The Mechanical Mice” 

4. “The Opportunists” 

5. “Sixth Column” 

6. “Lost Rocket” 

7. “The Traitor” 

On the subject of “Sixth Column”: 1. I 
don’t like this kind of stuff: “this crazy 
world — in which the superiority of the white 
man was not a casually accepted ‘of 
course.’ ” 2. It was very stale stuff and 

didn’t move very fast. 3. The science was 
good. 4. I think it will gather momentum 
as it rolls; it better had. 

It was a better than average number, 
and the best thing in it was the article 
“Starting Point.” By heck, I’m glad to. 
get a little fuel for my frequent arguments, 
that in organic chemistry lies the easiest 
and likeliest way toward a decent solution 
to the problems in genetics, bacteriology, et 
cetera. For instance, I am inclined to doubt 
the possibility of that trick that was tried 
m “Sian,” eliminating certain characteristics 
for a certain number of generations. For 
the properties of the genes are probably 
merely those of the proteins making them 
up, and if this is true, then any alteration 
in the genes would change the characteris- 
tics for good. 

And I like that idea of the genes being 
merely protein molecules. There are infi- 
nitely many possible arrangements of the 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sul- 
phur by the rules of organic chemistry that 
these giant molecules could contain all the 
inherited traits in their very structure. As 
to mutants, these X ray mutation machines 
make the idea look pretty good that the 
genes are unstable and cosmic rays excite 
the atoms occasionally. This would cause 
a sort of shuffling of the inherited charac- 
teristics., Qr if «ome of the less complex 



radicles were broken down, very different 
characteristics, in the next generation. Any- 
one care to argue that? Or set me right 
if I’m all off? I’m only a junior in high 
school. 

About the only subject I haven’t talked 
about is the column “In Times to Come, 
and let me tell you, I’m glad there’s a 
story by Heinlein coming. — Chandler Davis, 
309 Lake Avenue, Newton Highlands, Mass. 



Review of the year. 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

This being December, I thought it would 
be a good time to review Astounding for 
the past year. 

To begin with, the flood of new science- 
fiction magazines onto the market in the 
past twelve or fifteen months has made it 
next to impossible for even a rabid fan to 
read them all. Accordingly, I carefully 
went over several issues of each some 
months ago, and eliminated all but three. 
And of those three, Astounding is at the 
top. _ 

The reasons for this are manifold, l he 
most obvious is that it is the only one with- 
out a lurid cover, showing impossible scenes 
and covered from top to bottom with print- 
ing. Secondly, what other magazine gives 
us that boon to readers-in-bed and col- 
lectors, trimmed edges? And in what other 
science-fiction periodical do we find uniform 
bindings and at least some good quality 
paper, not to mention 160 (count ’em) 
pages? 

But it’s stories that make the magazine, 
in the final analysis, I hear someone say. 
True enough; but it’s appearance that sells 
it in the first place. And after that, the 
stories keep the customer. Here, too, 
Astounding tops them all. 

Why? We get plausible stories— with a 
few exceptions; “One Was Stubborn” — with 
plausible backgrounds. W r e get different 
stories — “Admiral’s Inspection.” We get 
stories that are remembered — almost all 
short stories, because they necessarily leave 
out much in the way of character delinea- 
tion, et cetera, are quickly forgotten, and 
that eliminates many of your competitors 
from possible Halls of Fame. 

' For top story of the year, I nominate 
“Final Blackout.” The choice is difficult, 
due to severe competition, but inescapable. 
Seldom have I read such a powerful and 
moving novel in any publication. Rather, 



160 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



I should say, never. Presenting, first of 
all, a completely believable story, timely, 
based on a logical outcome of the present 
world situation, Hubbard has given us an 
unforgettable character in the Lieutenant. 
Cold, able, ruthless, he goes on, almost in- 
evitably, to triumph over all odds, only to 
lose in the end in a climax, completely un- 
expected, that moved me perilously close 
to tears. The entire atmosphere of the 
story is somber, and Hubbard instills a per- 
fect quality of frustration and hopelessness 
— perhaps prophetic of actual things to 
come. All honors to Hubbard. 

Immediately on the Lieutenant’s heels 
comes Jommy Cross. Van Vogt completely 
justifies your advance blurbs on “Sian” in 
as fascinating and breath-taking story — 
and a different story — as I have seen. Here 
again, the author’s mastery of words is such 
that the scene of Kathleen’s death, and 
later, of her “resurrection” are enough to 
bring tears to the unwary. And when a 
story can come close to making me cry, 
brother, it’s a story. Not that I measure 
the worth of a tale by its tear -jerking quali- 
ties. I am merely illustrating by an ex- 
ample, the effectiveness of the entire work. 

The presence of two such outstanding 
novels as those above causes the astound- 
ing situation of a Dr. Smith story in third 
place. And “Gray Lensman” is probably 
one of Smith’s best. No use discussing the 
story. Smith’s “Super-super” formula never 
fails, and I look forward to Kinnison’s next 
adventures. Dr. Smith, are you working 
on them, I hope? 

As for the other serials, “If This Goes 
On — ” is a prime example of psychology 
invading the s-f field. In its present vol- 
ume, particularly in Astounding, this trend 
is the most noteworthy development in the 
past year or two. The endless short stories 
being ground out on mechanical s-f themes 
pall after a while, and the new trend, if 
not overdone is very welcome. The story 
in question suffers in comparison to the 
giants of the .same year, but by itself is 
good. 

"Crisis in Utopia” pales besides the 
others, though the second installment is 
lively enough. 

Some of the shorts, particularly those ex- 
hibiting the aforementioned psychological 
trend are noteworthy: “And Then There 
Was One,” “Cold,” in which s-f’s one-time 
master of the voluminous near-hack reaches 
a real high, “The Roads Must Roll,” and 
Heirdom rolls along as one of your better 
authors; “Coventry,” and more Heinlein; 



“The Idealist and “The Kilkenny Cats,” 
and we hope more of von Rachen’s series, 
“Rendezvous” and Berryman clicks only a 
little less loudly than in “Special Flight,” 
“Blowups Happen” and again Heinlein, 
“The Warrior Race,” “Fog” which presents 
that less glamorous side of revolutions 
which the average man sees. 

And of the mechanical and adventure 
type of s-f, some merit special attention: 
"Neutral Vessel” shows that Vincent still 
can put out the real stuff on occasion, and 
shows, incidentally, the same sort of thing 
— solutions of unbelievably difficult me- 
chanical problems on a space flight — that 
made headliners of “Special Flight” and 
“Admiral’s Inspection.” “Locked Out” is of 
similar stuff, and a fine short. “The Pro- 
fessor Was a Thief” was unusual. “Repeti- 
tion” should have been mentioned above. 
“Vault of the Beast,” though it seems to 
indicate a sort of van Vogt formula — e. g. 
“Discord in Scarlet” and “Black Destroyer” 
— still stands ably on its own feet. “Cleri- 
cal Error” represents the better Simak. 
“Homo Sol” is amusing. “White Mutiny” 
is Jameson’s best, a worthy successor to 
“Admiral’s Inspection.” “Runaway Cargo” 
shows that Schachner improves when he 
produces fewer stories. “Salvage” indicates 
that Vic Phillips is a man to watch. 

A few stories I disliked. My pet hate 
is the one wherein the world comes to a 
sad end: “Sunspot Purge,” “Quietus,” 

“Last of the Asterites,” “In the Day of the 
Cold.” Next comes the sad death of any 
planet: “Unguh Made a Fire.” This criti- 
cism is aside from any fundamental worths 
of the stories. Other dislikes: dawn-of-man 
stories, “Reincarnate,” in which a trite 
ending spoiled a good story; “Deputy Cor- 
respondent,” wherein Vincent strikes a new 
low in triviality; “The Red Death of Mars” 
— purest hack — belonged in a competitive 
magazine that dotes on such; “Farewell to 
the Master,” which I could not figure out; 
the Johnny Black stories, while amusing, 
leave me cold, except the most recent, “The 
Exalted,” wherein the professor saves things 
to make an amusing yarn. “Butyl and the 
Breather,” “One Was Stubborn” and 
“Emergency Landing” belonged in Un- 
known. 

The rest of the stories were more or less 
good without being noteworthy. 

I believe that all s-f stories should have 
a plausible background, and all phenomena 
and machines should have an adequate de- 
scription, except in sequels. 



As for illustrations. The covers are, oh 
the whole, good. Humans look like hu- 
mans, and the coloring is not too violent. 
The Einstein eclipse was especially fine of 
the astronomical covers, of which give us 
more. Rogers is adequate, but art occa- 
sional change is always good. I still like 
Wesso. The February cover is especially 
notable. Rogers’ use of grays is extremely 
effective. The inside pictures present the 
magazine’s weakest point. Whether you use 
your present artists because Street & Smith 
demand it or because of your own ideas, I 
dunno. The Schneeman-Isip-Kolliker com- 
bination is not always good. And Kramer 
and Rogers — -inside — are not so hot either. 
I still like Wesso. All these birds have 
some very fine moments: S’s jackets for 

“Sian” and “Final Blackout,” K’s “Reincar- 



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nate” — brrr — and so on. But they all fall 
flat on occasion, and none are as consist- 
ently dependable as Wesso. I still like him. 
However, I will admit that I am growing 
accustomed to Astounding’s new illustrat- 
ors, and their work grows on me. I might 
even find myself liking the majority of it. 
Schneeman can he very good. And so can 
Wesso. 

It would be nice if the editor would oc- 
casionally answer a letter in the readers’ 
column. Make it more cozy, what? But 
the editor’s editorials are always very read- 
able and timely. I continually regret the 
editor’s withdrawal from active writing. 
His monthly articles in Astounding some 
time ago were most interesting. And since 
he started editing, we have lost two of our 
best authors: Campbell and Stuart! 

The articles are always informative, usu- 
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they’re all good. But remember the name 
is Astounding Science-Fiction. 

And, adding fuel to a fire, I thought 
“General Swamp” was one of your best. 
Plausible science, and George Washington 
tactics. 

In conclusion I request: Heinlein, de 
Camp, van Vogt, Phillips, Berryman, von 
Rachen, Hubbard, and — er— Wesso. It 
goes without saying, that an automatic re- 
quest is made for Smith, Campbell and 
Stuart. Thanks for omitting Kummer. — 
Charles Johnson, 238 Maypole Road, Upper 
Darby, Pa. 

SCIEDCt Discussions 

Bibliography lot Symbolic Logic. 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

With your permission I would like to 
give a fuller answer to the request from 
Joseph Ryus (Astounding — January, 1941) 
for a bibliography on the “algebra of analy- 
sis,” better known as symbolic logic. 

Two excellent introductory works are 
“The Theory of Logic,” by Usheuko, and 
“Formal Logic,” by Bennet and Baylis; but 
'for the serious ^student a much more com- 
prehensive, and not too difficult, text is 
“Symbolic Logic,” by C. I. Lewis arid 
C. H. Langford. In addition to the above, 
there is a very recent book, “Mathematical 
Logic,” by W. V. Quine, which is well 
recommended — in fact, Quine’s breathtak- 
ing methodological innovations have re- 
ceived highest praise from Professor A. N. 
Whitehead, no less! 

These are purely logical works, but if 
anyone is interested in applied logic, recent 
improvements in scientific method, et 
cetera, I would strongly urge him to read 
“Science and Sanity,” by Alfred Korzybski 
— a new edition of which should be off the 
press by the time this is printed. 

None of the above require any previous 
grounding in mathematics, but they fur- 
nish, in themselves, an excellent background 
for the student who wishes to go on to 
the general theory of numbers, theory of 
groups, rings, and the algebra of matrices, 
et cetera. 

I would like to add that symbolic logic 
is rather seductive in its ow n merits alone. 
To the sensitive mind, its clarity of defini- 
tion, and nowhere-equalled rigor of proof, 
will give a vista of abstract beauty that 
cannot be easily matched. Since many 
readers of Astounding are quite passion- 
ately analytical, they would probably enjoy 
this subject. — Philip Woliston, 1130 Court 
St., Apt. B, Los Angeles, California. 



M0 




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